Lucia Kagramanyan © Tommaso Andorlini 5 Nov 2024
18:30 - 20:00
Her Voice: Behind Armenian Lullabies
Visit Framer Framed on 5 November 2024 for Her Voice: Behind Armenian Lullabies, a research project by artist and sound researcher Lucia Kagramanyan. Curated by League of Tenders as part of Vleeshal’s International Nomadic Program, Her Voice is presented as a show on NTS Radio and an in-person listening session at Framer Framed. The project explores the rich tradition of Armenian lullabies, showing how women’s voices are a powerful tool for knowledge production and its intergenerational transmission.
The world’s earliest archives or libraries were the memories of women. Patiently transmitted from mouth to ear, body to body, hand to hand. (Trinh T. Minh-Ha. Woman, Native, Other)
When it comes to the institutionalisation of the oral tradition of lullabies, the composers and singers are predominantly male, while the voices that initially performed them are mainly female. Typically sung by mothers to soothe their children, lullabies represent the first intimate musical experience in a person’s life. For the project Her Voice: Behind Armenian Lulllabies, Lucia Kagramanyan collected Armenian lullabies that reflect the complexity of the tradition, which combines melodic chants and simple rhymes with myths, legends and tellings of personal and collective grief. These songs not only help to establish emotional bonds through sound, words and touch, but also form an integral part of oral history and cultural memory of the people – mostly produced by women in a non-didactic and healing way.
Artist and sound researcher Kagramanyan focused on field research and explored archives of Armenian record labels. She collected lullabies from all over Armenia, including those sung in her friends’ families and asked her mother, musician Anna Vardazaryan, to perform a lullaby written by her grandmother Ivetta Aznaurova. Kagramanyan also refers to various sources of classical and popular Armenian music.
Women’s role in history, in resistance to oppression – as well as in the history of music – is often obscure. Nevertheless, the everyday work of raising children and transmitting collective memory, culture and language is not only fundamental for the political struggles but also for the healing process. Lullabies that are nowadays sung by Armenian mothers enable the interweaving of people’s struggles, sorrows, and joys across generations and national boundaries. In her project, Kagramanyan seeks to return the legacy of the women who created such an abundant and complex tradition — the legacy, which is an integral part of history, unlike their names.
Lucia Kagramanyan © Maria Vartanova
Her Voice is part of Vleeshal’s International Nomadic Program 2024-2025, organised by curatorial duo League of Tenders. It continues the First Season of the programme Her Right, devoted to decolonial approaches to feminism and questioning it from non-Western perspectives.
Sign up here to attend the listening session on 25 November 2024 from 18:30-20:00.
About
Lucia Kagramanyan is a Vienna-based artist and DJ, also known as the host of the NTS radio show Panorama Yerevan, which is showcasing Armenian music in its huge variety. Kagramanyan is researching Armenian music and making it accessible via one-hour episodes that focus either on different genres or moods, mixing old and new recordings. She is also a resident at Radio Alhara, where she is hosting a monthly late-night show every first Tuesday of the month. Kagramanyan is currently studying fine arts and critical studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
League of Tenders is a curatorial duo established in 2018 by Elena Ishchenko and Maria Sarycheva. Over time, League of Tenders has focused on disability representation, overcoming the alienation of everyday labour, practices of care, and support and friendship in the age of disasters. Their projects disrupt traditional forms, seeking to place concepts, people and artworks in unexpected contexts and inviting them to engage in dialogue. The duo has been appointed as Vleeshal’s nomadic curators for Vleeshal’s Nomadic Program 2024-2025.
Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art in Middelburg expanded its existing exhibition programme in 2015 with the internationally oriented Nomadic Program, with which Vleeshal expands its mission to provide space for experimentation and examines what it means to present artworks in unusual contexts. The 2024-2025 series, which is titled Repetition is a Form of Changing, is developed by the curatorial duo League of Tenders. It consists of Four Seasons, of which Her Right is the first. Her Right will revisit the immersive exhibition International Feminist Art, which was on display in Vleeshal in 1980 and which, despite proclaiming to present artists who ‘emerged in many places around the world’, focused on the Western art scene.
NTS Radio is an online global radio platform providing curious minds with a home for music discovery. Built by music lovers, for music lovers. Broadcasting music from over 80 cities around the globe, NTS platforms artists through radio and creative projects.
This event is in English. Admission is free.
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This event may be photographed and filmed. Kindly let us know in advance if you prefer not to have your picture taken.
Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.
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