Initiatives Onassis AiR Onassis AiR Programs 2022/23

Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė: Fate Songs

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė’s proposed project "Fate Songs" will look into the practice of Moirológhia, the Greek lamenting tradition. The research will explore the concurrence of different temporalities: the temporalities of the living and the dead which rarely intersect in our everyday perception—but is central to ritual singing. The project will involve working with professionals who practice lamenting, while focusing on the emotions of fear and grief in relation to the ecological crisis.

Gawęda and Kulbokaitė’s research and works derived from it move between physical and digital spaces often turning to performativity as a bind for a practice in which somatic experience, be it material, molecular, individual or collective, forms the core. "Fate Songs" springs from the artists video work series "Mouthless", of which the first part was developed while at Οnassis AiR in 2020. In the video series, confusion seeps into the cracks of history and flourishes in the comforting darkness, intricately organic like wet forest moss. The series retraces the construction of the deviant, heretic subject, and conversely monstrification and othering of Nature as historically intertwined phenomena. "Mouthless Part I" in particular focuses on out-loud reading as conjuring, of agency of finding voice and speaking out, as well as a potentiality of an artwork to call forth the unseen and unheard stories. "Fate Songs" will follow this trajectory foregrounding the accord between the sonic and the underworld.

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Creator's Note

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė’s research project “Fate Songs” begun with a broad interest in the folk singing tradition and in how traditional songs exist as carriers of knowledge and help create collective spaces, especially for women. The research project focused on Moirológhia, the Greek lamenting practice, through extensive reading, research trips, and a collaboration with the vocal ensemble Isokratisses on the selection and recording of several polyphonic songs from Epirus. Gawęda and Kulbokaitė’s research explores the concurrence of two different temporalities: that of the living and that of the dead. Their intersection is rare in our everyday perception but central to ritual singing. This twofoldness of the world and the constant blurring of the boundaries is further reflected in “Brood”, a long durational performance piece which Gawęda and Kulbokaitė partially developed while at Onassis AiR and was presented at Move 2023 in Centre Pompidou in the summer of 2023. The 6-hour “Brood” sound piece, created with composer Oxhy from London, includes songs by Isokatisses that were selected for their connectedness to ecology through lyrics that address nature, whether animal or plant, as a significant agent in the world capable of thought and dialogue, and speak about the underworld as the parallel reality.