Endi Tupja & Klodiana Millona - I had white cotton in my yard, I fed it, I watered it: A polyphony on femaleness and border geographies

Within the perspective of considering the marginal character of life in border geographies, the artist-in-residence Endi Tupja, in collaboration with artist and researcher Klodiana Millona hosted by Onassis AiR, document women's singing practices in the polyphonic tradition in Derviçan (Albania). The project traces voice as a medium in the folklore tradition through a polyphonic topography of sound materiality. A double belonging between languages and cultures in the margins, offers ways of looking unto forms of “Souths” in Europe, gestures shaping an architecture of voices, and the hierarchical migration practices impacting the latter. Through singing sessions, recordings, interviews and the transcription and translation of text songs, the project explores how language and music are connected to the territory, to practices of migration and (un)mobility. Bodies are both archives and medium trajectories interrupted, but yet ongoing of preservation and activation.

Endi Tupja is an Onassis AiR Fellow within the framework of the European Media Art Platform, that is co-funded by the European Union.