One Song
One Song is an audio-visual installation from artist Kadir Karababa about how songs are carried across borders and continents and yet remain firmly rooted in the places they were first sung.
Audiences come face to face with women as they sing acapella, sometimes alone, sometimes overlapping in a chorus of voices.
The work is created with women who have the common experience of having been born outside of and moved to the UK. In a series of workshops, contributors are invited to share their migration stories with each other and contemplate the themes of memory, power of song and home.
Sung in their original languages, all have English subtitles allowing the viewer to experience their tales of the land, love, and loss.
One Song was originally commissioned by Counterpoints Arts, funded by Hackney Council’s Shoreditch and Hoxton Art Fund and exhibited at the Museum of the Home in London between October 2022 and February 2023.
A second phase of the project in Medway, Kent has been made possible thanks to public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Visit the installation at Nucleus Arts, Chatham, from Saturday 6th July 2024 to Sunday 28th July 2024
Commissioned by Counterpoints Arts.
Singers: Alessandra Liguori, Alicia Rodriguez, Anisha Pucadyil, Audrey Harrison, Çiğdem Doğus, Fatimah Soraya Nobeebaccus, Francesca Camozzi, Hacer Karababa, Handan Karakuş, Jasmina Dimitrijevic, Liya Takie, Majlinda Xhaferraj, Primla Bhambri, Saeeda Banu, Yuko Tsukahara Gaydu.
Co-facilitator and Vocal Coach: Ellen Muriel
Producer: Tom Green
Website: Maria Ilona Moore
Filming and Editing: Tyler Freeman-Smith
Graphic Design: Studio DC
Set Construction: Marguerite Lepperd and Elisabetta Antonucci
Curator for Museum of the Home: Louis Platman
Special thanks: Hackney Council, Refugee Women’s Association, Xenia, Age UK, and all the staff of Counterpoints Arts and Museum of the Home.
Singers: Adesewa Ajayi, Alberta Chaza-Hobbs, Cleta Cargill, Cynthia O’Connor, Irina Fridman, Kudakwashe Osoba, Lina Anderson, Pamela Rimmel, Randa Saab, Rita Vieraitiene, Tonnie Keith, Vicky Onitiri.
Co-facilitator and Vocal Coach: Dani Osoba
Producer: Vanessa Stone
Website: Kit Hamm
Lighting and Camera: Giorgia Young
Graphic Design: Salina
Photography: Michi Masuma
Set Construction: Anchor Signmakers
Gallery Manager: Genevieve Tullberg
Special thanks: Medway African and Caribbean Association, Medway Interfaith Action, Medway Adult Education, Medway Libraries, Ideas Test, Medway Council Culture Team, The Historic Dockyard Chatham, HL Darkroom, Taze Meze Mangal and all the staff of Counterpoints and Nucleus Arts.
Kadir Karababa (born 1985) is a British-Turkish artist, living and working in London.
Kadir makes work in a variety of media, such as painting, print, sculpture and installation. He has developed an ever evolving, experimental and collaborative mode of working which transcends boundaries as an interdisciplinary artist.
His practice has a strong sense of socio-political engagement and mines the intersections of his working class, queer, migrant identities as well as referencing broader cultural and art historical contexts. He draws on personal experiences from his family and childhood and creates multi-dimensional works that are, in his words, ‘unashamedly sentimental’ and provoke reflection.
