The Vessel of Peace by formalhaut (artists Gabriela Seifert and Götz Stöckmann) rises from the 38th parallel in Korea—at 한반도통일미래센터 Center for Unified Korea. The Vessel opens to the skies above. It listens and emits sounds when touched. From the inside, the Vessel creates a horizon and makes visible the ever-changing light and weather of the Earth’s cosmic atmosphere. Below, at the bottom of the Vessel, the water table acts as a mirror, reflecting observers, and overlapping with the reflected cosmic magic above. The mist and rainwater of seasons and winds collect in the table, overflowing at times seawards through the valleys. The Vessel was engineered with Eugen Schuler of gbd, Austria.
The poem on the Vessel of Peace by Don Mee Choi, a poet and translator, is a version of “Sky Similes” from DMZ Colony, inspired by the snow geese the poet unexpectedly saw migrating in the skies above St. Louis, Missouri, US (38.648056 north). The birds pointed the poet back to the DMZ of Korea, which is also home to many migratory birds. The poem draws upon poet Kim Hyesoon’s idea in Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018): It may be that women’s or death’s song is sung only in vowels, without the consonants. “Sky Similes” utilizes the language of vowels, birds, and vertigo.
urban topology, Korea, a collaborative design and research group exploring challenges and opportunities in art, architecture, and urbanism, founded by Hyun Jun Kim and Taeyoung Kim provided project initiative and coordination for the Vessel
Photos by urban topology.
12.10.2024
20:00 Uhr
LOCATION
Pinellodrome, Dominicusstraße 5-9, 10823 Berlin
MORE INFORMATION
NEW MUSIC Composition by composer Mayako Kubo
Ahn Hak-sóp #5 (from DMZ Colony 2020, World premiere,
Konzert III Atonale e. V. 2024
ARTISTS
Text by Don Mee Choi
Duo Interconnections:
Clara Simarro, harp
Richard Putz, percussion
Composition Notes:
Striking the harp and pulling chains
Don Mee Choi’s work is like the sound of the words themselves. As a short-tempered person, I was never used to reading poems more than once. But her poems, no matter how many times I read them, keep getting better and better like seaweed. Her poetry collection DMZ Colony is like a picture book. It’s more of a report than a book of poems, because DMZ stands for the Korean Demilitarized Zone. One of the chapters is an interview with a prisoner of war. Here the words crack with the whip. Blood flows between the words. I am surprised at how much this poetry appeals to me. For this reason, I have prepared a combination of harp, a seemingly beautiful instrument, and heavy chain percussion. -- Mayako Kubo
Fotos by Erik-Jan Ouwerkerk and Janine Kühn
The recording of the performance on Mayako Kubo’s YouTube channel
Composer: Mayako Kubo
"A Little Confession" (from Hardly War) for soprano and accordion UA
Poem: Don Mee Choi
Irene Kurka: soprano
Marko Kassl: Accordion
World Premier in JUNE 2025
Place & Time TBA
Fremdesprache oder Muttersprache
Eine Fremdsprache zu beherrschen bedeutet noch lange nicht, in dem fremden Land heimisch geworden zu sein. Was nun? Das Lied „A Little Confession“ , das auf dem gleichnamigen Gedicht von Don Mee Choi basiert, ist eine Hommage an die Fremde – die ein Leben lang ohne Heimat lebt und in einer fremden Sprache kommuniziert. Dabei wird oft übersehen, dass diese Sprache für die betroffene Person fremd ist – als sei es selbstverständlich. Wie paradox! Gewöhnt man sich daran, oder wird man am Ende doch einheimisch? Die Antwort lautet: NEIN! Man wird nie wirklich einheimisch, auch wenn die eigene Muttersprache längst verblasst ist. Es bleibt immer eine Distanz, eine innere Fremdheit, die selbst mit perfekter Sprachbeherrschung nicht überwunden werden kann. Diese Komposition spiegelt das Gefühl von Entwurzelung und Identitätsverlust wider. Sie stellt die Frage, ob man jemals wirklich ankommen kann, wenn man seine eigene Sprache und Kultur hinter sich gelassen hat.
I wrote 4 experimental Kundimans for CHAN composed by Susie Ibarra. The pieces are based on the ecosystems as well as Ibarra’s photos and recordings of glaciers, forests, and rivers.
Mar 26, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Berlin, Breitscheidplatz, 10789 Berlin, Germany
About the event
CHAN: Sonnets and Devotions in the Wilderness are six Kundimans composed for ensemble, voice , speaker trees, poets and baroque pipe organ. These Kundimans, are Fiipino love song compositions dedicated to landscapes that are dear to me and which I have spent time or live in. It includes the Migrating Beech Trees of Medieval Forests of Germany; the once Berlin-Warsaw Glacial Spillway which has been compared to the Serengeti in the Ice Age; the Sacred Glacial Lake Tsmongo in north Sikkim Himalayan Mountains; and Pasig River along Manila Bay in Luzon, Philippines historically and culturally a life source yet also once proclaimed a dead river. Poems and Sonnets are written by Korean poet Don Mee Choi and Nigerian poet Logan February. The music is composed for viola, bass clarinet, acoustic and electric guitar, harp, horn in F, tuba and trombone, percussion, speaker tree percussion , poets and voice. The title name is Susie Ibarra’s middle name, Chan, meaning meditation.
