Poetry Jazz

Mihret Kebede Alwabie & Christina Werner, Jazz-/Poetrykünstler*innen, Addis Abeba/Berlin

Mihret Kebede Alwabie ist eine Künstlerin und Poetin aus Addis Abeba, die Projekte zu Jazz und Poesie ins Leben gerufen hat. Zusammen mit Christina Werner, einer Berliner Kunstvermittlerin und Co-Direktorin des Instituts für Raumexperimente, stellt sie das Projekt «Poetry Jazz» vor. Dabei geht es um die Frage, was beim Prozess des Übersetzens geschehen kann; inwiefern Poesie ein politischer Akt ist.

Zum Projekt

Poetry Jazz is the name of a particular style of popular performance poetry from Ethiopia that fuses poetry and jazz, recitation and improvisation. A long-term collaboration between Tobiya Poetic Jazz, Addis Ababa and the Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experiments), Berlin celebrates the great work of and collaboration among poets and musicians from three continents, fusing poetry in Amharic, English, and German with live music.

The participating artists present the critical and inspiring potential of this art form at numerous events. They act as popular ambassadors for the lively crowds and broadcast (hi)stories in the wake of destabilising political momentum and suggest subversive methodologies to challenge threats to the freedom of expression.

Gesprächsvignette

Bio

Mihret Kebede Alwabie is an artist and poet. She is founding manager of Tobiya Poetic Jazz and its popular monthly poetry and jazz event series in Addis Ababa. She is a long-term partner in the collaboration Poetry Jazz between Tobiya Poetic Jazz and the Institut für Raumexperimente. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. The working title of her thesis is Conversing with Silence, a continuation of her MA studies at Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, Addis Ababa University. 

Christina Werner is together with Olafur Eliasson co-director of the Institut für Raumexperimente, Berlin since its inception in 2009 focussing on developing collaboration and education formats in the arts. She co-conceived the project Acting Archives–Media Lab for Artistic Research and Education, developed with partners based in Addis Ababa and Berlin on the subject of artistic translation and proactive archiving between 2013 and 2015, and choreographed the longterm collaboration series Poetry Jazz between the Institut für Raumexperimente and Tobiya Poetic Jazz.