Virtual Migrants

art, digital media, performance exploring race, migration, environment, global justice

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Poetic, filmic, visual & rhythmic responses to BREATHE!

Excited to invite you to our event on Friday 15th May online on Zoom or FaceBook Live at 7:30pm
A Numbi-Virtual Migrants-XR Tower Hamlets collab
feat. a stellar lineup of local/global artist + film premiere of BREATHE!

Join live audience on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/511372970

Raffle ticket & donation link: https://tinyurl.com/y7p8yn6q

Proceeds from the event will benefit NUMBI Arts.

BREATHE!
Development – Exclusion – Community – Environment – Resistance
a documentary of a protest/performance project in a public community garden
by Virtual Migrants and Numbi with XR Tower Hamlets, the Women’s Environmental Network and local people

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Interplay Now crossover music with webcasting

A project developed by Virtual Migrants in Sheffield (UK), Interplay Now enables new musical collaborations across different cultures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZtMsb7Jzfw
The final 2019 performance by Interplay Now, titled ‘Greater Than The Sum’

Interplay Now a new project bringing together very different musical genres, cultures and communities to create new music, and to encourage deeper understanding of the background to that music both artistically and socially using educative journalism. The UK is rich in having a very diverse range of cultures and the innovative possibilities through bringing us together are mostly underused. The project involved a significant training programme – in music, video, webcasting and journalism (also to a lesser degree, photography).

Webcasting with training for Interplay Now
Webcasting with training for Interplay Now

Interplay Now has it’s own website www.interplaynow.org – head over there for all up-to-date information with full details about the project. The project aims to bridge divides, generate artistic innovation and develop organisational skills among local people. We have also developed three micro-commissions connecting unusual pairs of Sheffield based musicians. Interplay Now hopes to catalyse the future evolution and understanding of musical crossover. We aim to use educative webcasting to develop audiences and influence musical and creative practice.

Interplay Now Collective rehearsing and developing new music

Interplay Now Collective

Interplay Now first full concert performance 1st August 2019 at Theatre Deli

Our project’s starting point was with a diverse group of people mostly who arrived as refugees, who created original material to perform, talk about and webcast a range of music created during the weekly project sessions. This is the Interplay Now Collective. The first live presentation on 20th June 2019 at Theatre Deli preceded a performance by Avital Raz at Sheffield’s Migration Matters festival during Refugee Week, more details at www.migrationmattersfestival.co.uk/full-programme-2019-b/my-jerusalem . The next was a dedicated performance of their own at Theatre Deli on 1st August 2019 – InterplayNow Collective LIVE with Arash Sabet.

Artist Commissions to create original crossover music

Six artists were commissioned to create new music in three pairs crossing over their very different genres and cultural backgrounds in unusual ways. The final presentation of the commissioned pieces took place at an event ‘Greater Than The Sum‘ on 9th October 2019 – a truly spellbinding and exhilarating event.

Greater Than The Sum - header image for final Interplay Now concert on 9th October 2019

In 2019, the commissioned artist pairs were:

Kate Griffin and Mina Salama
Mina Salama and Kate Griffin Two musicians grounded in their traditions, Arabic, UK folk and Bluegrass, playing instruments derived from some of the oldest in the world. With Oud, Nay and Kawala flutes, Qanoon and Armenian Duduk, Guitar, Banjo and voice as their palette.
Shu Jiang and Dirty Freud
Shu Jiang and Dirty Freud A Shangai trained musicologist and expert player of Chinese zithers meets a British DJ and electro-dub producer of Caribbean heritage. Possibly the most radical combination of the evening combining delicacy and drive, grace and guts.
LNA and Avital Raz
LNA and Avital Raz A Scandinavian in Yorkshire making melancholic electronic sounds meets experimental folk music from a Sheffield based singer via Varanasi and Jerusalem . Two voices and an array of instruments including guitar, tanpura, and keyboards.

PLUS… The Interplay Now Collective

The original Interplay Now trainees

Music inspired by refugee members’ roots and journeys from Sudan, Syria, DRCongo, and the UK. Expect uplifting narratives, sung in a variety of languages, and media journalism creating a vivid cultural context through video projections. >> More about Interplay Now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YQsG6hDsaE
Example of our developing a webcast format through training people from refugee backgrounds

We need your support to build this new project further – please SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ujhN7adteCnU7Fa9g4WvQ and also please like our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Interplay Now is an amazing project run by Virtual Migrants in collaboration with Sheffield Refugee Council. We are also generously supported by SADACCA Studios who provide a fantastic space for us to work in. Other partners include Theatre Deli (Sheffield) and Koni Music, we are also grateful for financial support from Awards For All and the Arts Council England.

Interplay Now - logos of funders and supporters

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90 Degree Citizen – keynote exhibition for Platforma 2013

an exhibition by Virtual Migrants + performance / discussion events
on show at the Manchester Museum 10th October – 17th November 2013
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migrant art – alternative connections – cultural boundaries
A rare exhibition of work by a new wave of visual artists whose experiences include life as refugees in the UK engaging with objects from The Manchester Museum

Opening event:
In Conversation with artists and curators plus live music from Emmanuela Yogolelo
Thursday 10th October, 6.00 – 8.30pm
FREE to attend, but please register at www.90degreecitizen.eventbrite.co.uk

Produced in partnership with Street Level Photoworks (Glasgow), Manchester Museum and GM Immigration Aid Unit.  Part of Platforma 2013 national festival of arts and refugees.

Special performances / discussions on 10th and 30th October, starting at 6pm.

90 Degree Citizen presents artworks that resonate with experiences of migration and refuge. They represent a sample of a new wave of expression in the UK outside of the limitations of western art schools and markets, often with a greater interest in symbolism, narrative and cultural hybridity.

Exhibiting artists include [Read more…]

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CONTINENT CHOP CHOP: climate justice film project on Indiegogo

Nnimmo Bassey with international activist Vandana Shiva

Nnimmo Bassey with international activist Vandana Shiva

We’ve launched a crowdfunder so that we can work with poet, author, activist Nnimmo Bassey. To support us click on the CCC logo on the right to go to Indiegogo.
For more information about the project click on the Continent Chop Chop menu.

What is CONTINENT CHOP CHOP?

A new transmedia performance by Virtual Migrants, touring from November 2015.  It focuses on climate destruction and how it is linked to global austerity policies and refugees.  It currently includes only a short voice-over from Nnimmo Bassey as a part of the story.  We’ve launched a crowdfunder for this climate justice film project on Indiegogo. The new film created in collaboration with Nnimmo Bassey will become a centre-piece of the performance.

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RE-PRESENTING REFUGEES: discussion, performance, exhibition

90 Degree Citizen exhibition project:
Special Event on Weds 30th October, 6pm – 9pm, at Manchester Museum

>> ‘RE-PRESENTING REFUGEES’ panel discussion <<
>> ‘PASSENGER 12’ multimedia performance <<
>> ‘COMMITTED TO REPRESENT’ exhibition premiere – open to view from 5pm <<

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A range of key speakers and artists explore critical issues around art, displacement and refugees.  As a dynamic movement, alternative practices and perspectives, cultural resistance or affirmation, political and historical contexts.  Open to the public on the eve of the Platforma national conference on arts and refugees.  A Virtual Migrants event www.virtualmigrants.net .

Discussion begins 7.20pm – panel includes:

Flora Alexander – Iranian visual artist based in Glasgow
Yusra Warsama – poet, playwright and actor from Somalia
Tom Green – director of Platforma national network of arts and refugees
Humberto Velez – international visual, media and performance artist
Isobel Bowler – legal case worker at GM Immigration Aid Unit
Iseult Timmermans – artist and creative producer with refugee groups at Street Level Photoworks
Discussion chaired by Kooj Chuhan – artist and cultural producer; founder of Virtual Migrants and director of 90 Degree Citizen

Multimedia experimental performance: part 1 begins 7pm with part 2 after the discussion – includes artists:

Sai Murray (writer, poet, spoken word)
Maya Chowdhry (performer, writer, multimedia and interactive artist)
Aidan Jolly (composer-songwriter and musician)
Tracey Zengeni (vocalist)
Mazaher (VJ projections)
Elmi Ali (writer, poet, spoken word)
Pat Mackela (drums and percussion)

Committed To Represent – exhibition premiere with talks about the work at 6pm including special guest Mavis Makhaza from Gtr Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and WAST (Women Asylum Seekers Together):

Portable panels of photography and text, portraying the people behind the labels – our unsung heroes the legal immigration caseworkers and those who have needed their support. Created by Kooj Chuhan, Ursula Sharma and Mazaher, as a partnership project between GM Immigration Aid and Virtual Migrants.  This is a pop-up exhibition only on show until 1st November in the Kanaris Foyer at the museum.

This event is a part of the 90 Degree Citizen exhibition, on show from 10th October – 17th November at Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL

FREE to attend, but please register at www.re-presentingrefugees.eventbrite.co.uk

The café will be open during this event for food and drinks.  Light refreshments provided.  All timings are approximate.

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90 Degree Citizen – installing the exhibition

4bAmang Mardokhy arrives at Manchester Museum to install his paintings for 90 Degree Citizen – A rare exhibition of work by a new wave of visual artists whose experiences include life as refugees in the UK, and engaging with objects from The Manchester Museum.

“I have come from Kurdistan, north part of Iraq. Since the early start of my art experience, I also have learned how to live and express the sufferings of [Read more…]

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UPDATE: Special Guests and online video – 90 Degree Citizen exhibition: Opens 10th Oct 6pm at Manchester Museum

WAST_logoSPECIAL GUESTS ANNOUNCED: Mavis Makhaza from GM Immigration Aid Unit and WAST (Women Asylum Speakers Together), plus Tony Openshaw from ASHA (Asylum Support Housing Advice) will speak about their work in relation to the exhibition

stephen welsh - youtubeNEW VIDEO INTERVIEW NOW ONLINE: Stephen Welsh, the Curator of Living Cultures at Manchester Museum, on museum collections and 90 Degree Citizen in the context of Victorian colonialism and ethnography

Thursday 10th October, 6pm, Manchester Museum, here are full details of the Opening Event from our website. Free, but register here