In these times of globalisation and armed conflicts, which concept of 'country' is closest to you?
How do you identify with the place where you were born?
Do you feel an attachment to the environment in which you grew up?
What influence did it have on you?
A country is not a territory but, above all, people who, despite all their differences, think alike, share a common history, function and empathise in similar ways. It is, in a direct and symbolic sense, a family bound by blood.
It is people who breathe at a similar rhythm and in the same polluted air. People who face an overwhelming reality day after day, living on the run, not knowing where they are going. With a similar physiognomy and physiology,
a common DNA that cannot be changed.
A country is blood, not only that coursing through the veins of successive generations, but also that shed in battle, slowly seeping into the stone pavement or the inert soil of the battlefield.
(Gohar Sargsyan)
Gohar Sargsyan
Was born in Gyumri, Armenia in 1981. As a teenager started to study ceramics and drawing at the National Center of Aesthetics, Yerevan. She continued her education at the Institute for Fine Arts, Yerevan in the department of Art History. Attended Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. In 2016 graduated from the Institute of Theater and Cinematography, Yerevan, Department of Animation. She has been part of several local and international projects and exhibitions. In 2017, she opened a solo exhibition called “The Observer”. Currently, Gohar Sargsyan works and lives in Yerevan, while working with various mediums such as graphics, prints, video art, animation and textile design.
Anna Sowa
Anna Sowa is experimental composer and artist, mainly focused on exploring electronic music and fields of performing arts. She is interested in the intersection of movement, gesture and theatricality in relation to electronic and instrumental music.
Born in 1987 in Limanowa (PL), currently resident in Basel. She graduated from the Bacewicz Academy of Music in Lodz (PL) with master degree in eurhythmics (2011) and composition (2016) where she had studied with Zygmunt Krauze. As part of the Erasmus+ Programme she studied composition and visualization with Dietrich Hahne at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen (DE) in years 2014-2015. As a Chinese government scholarship recipient she was student at Shanghai Conservatory of Music (CN) in years 2017-2018. In 2021 she graduated with distinction 'Specialised Master's in Composition with Caspar Johannes Walter and Johannes Kreidler.
In 2021 she won, together with the association Anomalia, the 3rd edition of the Fringe competition of the Foundatione Haydn Stiftung. As part of the prize, Anna Sowa's opera Silenzio/Silence was premiered in March 2022 as part of the Festival Oper 2022 in Bolzano.
She is member of IAWM ( The International Alliance for Women in Music), Young Polish Composer Society, Polish Institute of World Art Studies.
In years 2011 - 2017 she was teacher at the Complex of Music School in Radom (Poland) and lecturer piano improvisation at The Faculty Eurhythmics of The Grazyna and Kiejstut Academy of Music in Lódz.