Susie Ibarra: RHYTHM IN NATURE

07.11.2024 / 16:00 – 19:00
With Susie Ibarra

Presentation and conversation featuring participants of the project

Over eight weeks of six participatory research workshops, five communities in Berlin came together for Rhythm in Nature to support two elementary schools; Nürtingen Grundschule in Kreuzberg and WiKO TXL School, a school for Ukrainian refugees on the airfield at the former Tegel Airport.

The communities learned and developed relationships in the urban natural environment through listening, recording, and creating sound and music. The concepts, as well as both field and classroom methods, were taught from Susie Ibarra’s recent book Rhythm in Nature: An Ecology of Rhythm, released by her label, Habitat Sounds.

Conceived and led by the Filipinx-American composer, sound artist, and percussionist Susie Ibarra and the Berlin-based German Kulturagent and anthropologist Carsten Cremer, collaborations emerged and relationships between local communities formed. Children and adults learned about nurturing the environments they live and have migrated to; about connections between themselves, plants and animals. 

Thanks to the hosts, Campus Stadt Natur, the group was able to spend time in the landscape of the closed Tegel Airport, an important ecological site for Berlin’s ecosystem and climate. At daadgalerie and Nürtingen Grundschule, the children could meet in class in the heart of Kreuzberg, where the school welcomes current and new immigrant pupils.

The results will be presented collectively at daadgalerie on November 7.

“Sometimes the memories of the natural environments of their homelands would pop up in storytelling and reflections. Sometimes the kids were immersed in the micro world of the hopping grasshoppers and bees. Sometimes they were studying frequencies in trees, heidegrass, and mushrooms that grow in the landscape and used math to deduce the cycles of rhythm. Sometimes they were playing drums, xylophones, living plants, and writing cipher scores. Sometimes they  travelled onto Tegel  field to record and listen with headphones nature up close. It is a nature and environment that is their future, and we ask them about their experiences, how they connect and what their thoughts are about caring for it for each other and for future generations.”

-Susie Ibarra

Schedule:
from 4 pm admission
4:15 pm vocal warmup
4:30 pm: presentation & discussion
5:00 pm film screening
5:30 pm short brake and farewell to the kids
5:45 pm panel discussion
6:15 pm end of panel / q&a
from 6:30 pm cozy get together

daadgalerie
Oranienstraße 161
Berlin-Kreuzberg

Free admission

Joining the discussion are:
Students and families of both schools
Susie Ibarra, 2024 Fellow Music and Sound
Carsten Cremer, Kulturagent und Forscher
Wiebke Janzen, Nürtingen Grundschule Klassenlehrerin 456A und Konrektorin Nürtingen Grundschule
TianTian Wang, Klassenlehrerin WiKo TXL und Künstlerin
Dmytro Fedorenko , Ukrainian Translator and Sound Artist
Jake Landau, co producer Rhythm in Nature, Artist, Musician, and Sound  Engineer
Friederike Holländer, Head of Education, Bauhaus-Archiv/ Museum für Gestaltung
Daniela Pazdzierny , Projektmanagement Campus Stadt Natur – Umweltbildung Tegeler Stadtheidt

Followed by a panel discussion:

Ecologists Heribert Hofer and Marion East
in conversation with Susie Ibarra, Carsten Cremer, Daniela Pazdzierny

Moderated by Taïca Replansky, CTM Festival

The project was realized with the help of:

Jake Landau, co producer of Rhythm in Nature
Moritz Freudenberg , Filmmaker, Videographer
Jen Yakamovich, Rhythm in Nature Artist, Percussionist and Composer
Trey Cregan, Rhythm in Nature Artist, Electronics and Keyboards
Agustin Genoud, 2024 Fellow Music and Sound

Rhythm in Nature took place in the urban school communities of Tegel and Kreuzberg, Berlin. Supported by DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program, Green Berlin Campus Stadt Natur, Tegel and the temporary bauhaus-archiv / museum für gestaltung.