House of Solidarity
In November, the “Transforming Solidarities” consortium hosted an evening “In Defence of the Migration Society” at HAU: a polyphonic intervention expressing opposition to current migration and asylum policies. As a contribution to the annual programme series “Claiming Common Spaces” by the Alliance of International Production Houses, back at HAU after its first edition in 2018, “Transforming Solidarities” is once again setting up shop at HAU. It initiates a “House of Solidarity” to invite people to speak to and listen to each other, to commemorate and mourn and, above all, to collectively imagine in discussions, concerts, comedy, spoken word, and celebrations. How much more could we achieve if we would be able to stop the spread of hate and degradation, anti-Semitism and racism, sexism and misogyny, imperialism and capitalist extraction? And how can we get there?
One solution arising through research, civil society, art, and culture is developing practices and infrastructures of solidarity. These are what make living together in a migration society conceivable, allowing people to stand up for each other, the world, and the planet. This uprising needs to gain traction now more than ever. In light of the attack on the right to asylum in Europe, of the tactics of division between “people like us” and “the others”, and of the dwindling infrastructures for public services and the common good. Solidarity must urgently push back against the discourse of hatred and can offer solutions to social and political problems beyond deportation and marginalisation. Solidarity must urgently push back against the discourse of hatred and can offer solutions to social and political problems beyond deportation and marginalisation. The “House of Solidarity” aims to develop visions and methods for living together. Because this is the challenge we are facing today: protecting the migration society and reinventing our atomised world.
The three days open with improvised political comedy: actress Thelma Buabeng and musician Celina Bostic present their “Security” programme: together they form a fictitious security team that appears in racist, discriminatory situations, a special unit against discrimination!
The music in the “House of Solidarity” programme is also a plea for cultural freedom and diversity, which is so necessary in society. Two concert evenings show how migrant music culture has long been part of the pop canon: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşeks Anadolu-Rock combines Anatolian folk with psychedelic and progressive rock and Onom Agemo & The Disco Jumpers with singer Natalie Greffel present electrifying Afro-funk. On the second evening, the noisy electronics of Noufan combine trumpet and Farsi poetry, Eyal El Wahab, as El Khat, explores the musical tradition of his Yemeni-Diasporic history and Gazino Neukölln place Turkish and Arabic songs in a queer-feminist context.