The World We Live In, 2017

Jorien Ketelaar and I helped organise and curate for the "The World We Live In" project at the invitation of, and in collaboration with, students from the Prins Claus Conservatory.

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"The World We Live In" (TWWLI) is a student initiative born out of our collective distress at the recent and continuous tragedies occurring in the world today. With the constant news of war, displacement, violations of human rights, and many other disturbing issues happening daily all over the world, it can be difficult for us to fully process this information and our emotional responses to it. It can be difficult to not simply desensitise ourselves in psychological defence to the bombardment of negative news, let alone to feel as though we have the power to make any positive change in the world by ourselves. TWWLI realised that, as artists can surely employ music and art to help bring comfort to those who suffer; to express the feelings which are so difficult to communicate in words, to stimulate the emotions and the mind, and to bring people together. Although it may seem daunting or even impossible to help or change the current situation from here, we can still come together to create and share music, art, and ideas with our local, diverse community. To this end, we organised an event of mixed musics and arts inspired by humanitarian, world issues.

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Part of mine and Jorien's job was to create a children's workshop, which invited children from the local primary schools and refugee camps. Together, the children would make instruments from recycled materials and do a music workshop. The children also created paintings of the world they live in. All works made by the children were presented in an exhibition at the "The World We Live In" event at the Prins Claus Conservatory.