Berlin School of Sound & Goethe‑Institut in Exile
present

Concerts, performances, film screenings and listening session with musicians from Iran, Lebanon, Belarus, Palestine and Sudan at Kunsthaus ACUD, Veteranenstr. 21, Mitte.

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Tickets for performances €10.
Tickets for film screenings €3.

Thursday, October 17

Soundtracks of Resistance and Memory

Performances:

tickets

Friday, October 18

Sonic Belongings

tickets

Wednesday, October 23

Film screenings

Friday, October 25

Film screening

Sunday, October 27

Patterns of Nostalgia

tickets

Concerts, performances and listening sessions

Rap, electronic music compositions and DJing, sound art, multimedia art practices and experimental sounds - the Goethe-Institut in Exile and the Berlin School of Sound present the three-day festival Mapping Sounds in Exile at Kunsthaus ACUD. On October 17, 18 and 27, musicians from Iran, Lebanon, Belarus, Palestine and Sudan invite you to concerts, performances and listening sessions.

Although the musicians, who are often affected by the loss of their homeland, come from different parts of the world, they are united in many ways by questions of resistance, migration, (non-)arrival and memory. Music serves them all as a source and point of contact in moments of disorientation. The musicians may have had to leave their contexts of origin, but their musical traditions and conventions survive in the sound reservoir of their own work.

The musicians, most of whom now live in Berlin, supplement their sonic repertoire with the experience of new contexts. Mapping Sounds in Exile therefore not only draws a map of political crisis locations, but above all an atlas of diverse musical traditions that assert and expand themselves beyond borders. The festival aims to showcase the diverse styles and influences of pop musicians who have experienced ruptures and new beginnings. The aim is to strengthen their visibility and promote transnational networking.

Thursday, October 17
Listening Session: Soundtracks of Resistance and Memory

In many cultures, cultural artifacts are traditionally preserved through written mediums such as books, manuscripts, or music notes. However, these material forms are particularly susceptible to destruction, especially in times of war and conflict. It is during such periods that embodied forms of memory gain heightened importance. Embodied traditions, sustained over generations, allow cultural memory to persist through the act of transmission and remembrance. While music is often notated in some cultures, it remains part of embodied traditions in many others. Consequently, music serves as a crucial medium not only for preserving shared, lived experiences but also for community building purposes. Through musical performance, artists not only pay homage to historical narratives and affirmative cultural representations but also contribute to multiethnic belonging. Music’s accessibility further reinforces its role as an essential agent of memory preservation.This event will explore how displaced musicians utilize music as a means of safeguarding memory, articulating resistance, and asserting identity in the context of political upheaval.

During a Listening Session musicians will present up to three songs of personal or political significance, offering reflections on why these pieces function as vital soundtracks to the past and as foundational anchors for the future. How does music and sound, the act of listening, create comfort, belonging, address political topics or resistance? Listening to our environments, soundscapes and traditions–as well as contemporary contexts–becomes a political act. From radical listening to deep listening practices, participating artists will showcase a wide variety of sonic interests, influences and approaches.

Photo of Sarvenaz Mostofey

Iran: Sarvenaz Mostofey

Sarvenaz Mostofey is an Iranian sound artist and composer with an interest in electronic composition. With her background in photography and cinema, she has also worked as a sound designer in theater, with a secret life as a poet. Her projects incorporate space as an active attribute in the process of creating art, exploring interconnections between modes of sonic perception and concepts of space. She was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2020. She is currently based in Berlin.

Photo of Sarah Farina

Sarah Farina

Sarah Farina is an international DJ, music producer, curator and activist. She and her friends regularly organize the interdisciplinary event series Emergent Bass at the Berlin club Mensch Meier, which focuses on the historical awareness of cultural contexts of music and celebrates and centers Afro-diasporic influences in underground club culture. She refers to her sound as Rainbow Bass - describing very different sounds regardless of genre that come together in vibe and energy. What you hear is all you need to know. And what you'll hear in Sarah Farina's sets and music productions are seamlessly blended bass-heavy and futuristic beats with fearless forays through countless timbres, the hardcore continuum and beyond. Dark becomes light, lightness and positivity overlay heavy bass and rules are broken. She is also involved in the joint project 'Transmission' with scientist Dr. Kerstin Meißner to make the political relevance and history of international sound, club and rave culture audible and visible.

Photo of Ludmila Pogodina

Belarus: Ludmila Pogodina

Ludmila Pogodina is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Minsk, Belarus. Over 11 years of working on the art project #KeepMinskWeird, aimed at developing the local queer and art community despite repression and a conservative environment, music and art have become tools for Pogodina to engage in dialogue with audiences, even in places where there is no freedom of speech.

Photo of Zeyo Mann

Sudan: Zeyo Mann, Rap Performance

Zeyo Mann is a songwriter, rapper and filmmaker from Wad Madani, Sudan. With his work he documents the violations that he felt and sees. At the age of 5 he moved with his family to the United Arab Emirates, where he spent his youth. At the age of 14 he began to write poetry. But it was difficult for him to find his own flow. Despite his passion for the art of speaking, it was always a challenge for him as a stutterer. One day he spotted a beat on YouTube and tried to rap on it. He succeeded. From that moment on, he rapped on many stages in Sudan and since 2021 also in Germany. Music and films are my only comfort zone, he says, where he can express himself and share his thoughts. Art helped him overcome his difficult childhood of stuttering.

Photo of Falyakon

Palestine: Falyakon, DJ Set

Falyakon, is a multi-instrumentalist and DJ based between Ramallah and Berlin. She hosts a monthly radio program on Root Radio, and is also co-curator & resident DJ of Al Musalsal; a series of live performances and DJ sets in Palestine and beyond. Falyakon mixes sounds to create multi-layered, genre-bending, unique and erratic sets while controlling time and distorting structure by warping rhythms and morphing tones in a journey filled with distant memories, interruptions, and projections of what is to come.

Friday, October 18
Sonic Belongings

Where do we belong and how does our cultural and geographical environment shape our listening habits? How do we relate to music and which sonic environments and practices become our own, producing feelings of connection and home? What sounds do we capture, what soundscapes are we wanting to preserve? Between deep listening and folk music practices, field recordings and spoken words, the (hybrid) DJ-Sets of this night capture the essence of migratory experiences at the crossroads of cultures and places. Collected and found sounds empower imagination as they retell stories through music, exploring themes of memory, time, migration and forced existential exile. DJ-culture becomes through its archeological sonic discoveries a sort of archival practice, bringing a broader music culture to a wider public.

Photo of Rami Abi Rafi

Lebanon: Rami Abi Rafi, Hybrid DJ set INSIJAM

Insijam, meaning - harmony - in Arabic - the essence of chances and encounters takes center stage – combining Musique Concrète and Deep Listening pieces with Lebanese folk music and instrumental pieces - the performance shifts between Experimental - Avant-garde - Field Recordings - and Spoken Words - INSIJAM represents the beauty of diverse musical sources and encounters through a Doepfer A-100 Eurorack, records, tapes, digital, and voice.

Rami Abi Rafi’s work captures the essence of his migratory experiences. Born in the UK and of Lebanese heritage, he nowadays bridges between two burdened and deeply absorbing cities: Berlin and Beirut. The journey from London to Beirut, and current presence in Berlin, breathes the life into his work and inspired him to harmonize these influences in the different facets of his oeuvre. As a DJ, Sound Artist, and Photographer, Rami's practice reflects a life lived at the crossroads of cultures and places. Subtly confronting and surprising, his works aim to empower imagination as they retell stories through music. They are an invitation to explore themes of memory, time, migration and forced existential exile. His first live performance was in Madame Claude’s infamous EXPERIMONTAG nights, one of the strongholds of Berlin’s experimental music scene. From there he appeared at Tresor’s New Faces, Silent Green and ELSE and established a presence in Berlin's night culture. Rami has also made a name as radio host through monthly residencies on Radio Alhara, Noods Radio, and Cashmere Radio.

Listen on SoundCloud Listen on Cashmere Radio Photo of Ludmila Pogodina

Belarus: Ludmila Pogodina, DJ Set

Ludmila Pogodina is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Minsk, Belarus. Over 11 years of working on the art project #KeepMinskWeird, aimed at developing the local queer and art community despite repression and a conservative environment, music and art have become tools for Pogodina to engage in dialogue with audiences, even in places where there is no freedom of speech. After relocating to Berlin in 2022, Pogodina continued working on multimedia projects exploring themes of memory, female socialization, identity, and migration. In the project *Dis/Location Re/Visited*, 30 stories about the feeling of safety, the loss, and search for home are told through words, photographs, and music. In her solo DJ sets, Pogodina seeks to mix both genres and languages (English, Belarusian, Macedonian, Lithuanian, Spanish, German, etc.), creating an eclectic setlist that includes everything from assertive punk manifestos and dark electronic tracks to sensual stories about the body.

Sunday, October 27
Patterns of Nostalgia

How do we relate to our memories and the feelings it evokes? How can sound translate personal experiences? In our current climate of separation and fear, the act of listening becomes more and more important, connecting various realities and transmitting experiences and emotions, on an embodied and universal level beyond concepts. Between the Ukulele, electro-pop and synthesized sounds, Middle Eastern pop culture and rhythmic elements harmonics merge and dissolve, forging feelings of belonging and melancholia.

Photo of Hanik Soleimani

Iran: Hanik Soleimani, Electro-Pop-Set

Hanik Soleimani will play tracks from her album heavily inspired by Middle Eastern pop culture. It's going to be a simple, one-man electro-pop set, with a few puppets thrown in for fun. The whole thing happens on a desk, with a laptop, a controller, a synthesizer, and an electric ukulele. Hanik Soleimani, born in 1995 in Tehran, Iran, is a puppeteer, singer, and songwriter currently based in Berlin. She studied puppetry at Tehran University and is continuing her journey at Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch in Berlin. With a passion for musical puppet comedy, Hanik has written two musicals so far. She is also a member of Ovis, a Berlin-based jazz fusion band in collaboration with musicians from Jazz Institute Berlin, and LAN Ensemble, an experimental band connecting Tehran and Berlin. Currently, she is working on her first EP, Djoodja in Wonderland.

Photo of Sasha Smirnova

Belarus: Sasha Smirnova, Sound Performance SHARED STRAIN

Trained as a classical pianist, Smirnova's performance centers around the keyboard as the primary instrument. She uses it to play meticulously designed sounds, both digital and analog, blending them with processed vocals, and shifting rhythmic patterns. The harmonic and rhythmic elements of her live set flow in and out of the grid, seamlessly merging and dissolving. Eclectic sounds, inspired by various genres and ranging from piano passages to upbeat hi-hats and bass lines, aim to evoke memory and nostalgia, bringing out subtle, melancholic feelings. Sasha Smirnova is a Belarusian producer and visual artist based in Berlin. After dedicating her childhood to becoming a pianist, a wrist injury that put a stop to her music journey, and several professional detours later, she recently returned to music and released her debut single and EP on the Helsinki-based label World Canvas. She is currently continuing shaping her sound and working on her next EP.

Listen on SoundCloud