entangle/embrace
By Claudia Molitor, April 2021
entangle/embrace by Claudia Molitor is a new project that will become an outdoor and online performance event, taking place around, and inspired by trees. For the project's first research event we want to hear from you about your stories connected to either specific trees or a tree species. You can share your stories with us at the public ‘entangling’ of a score around a tree, or e-mail us your story. Eventually your story could then becoming part of an online series of new sonic works, inspired by a specific tree species, seen through a lens of cultural, social, and ecological entanglements.
Claudia explains...
‘I spent my childhood in a country where one of my parents grew up … and spent all my adult life in another country where my other parent grew up…. so in some sense you could consider me migratory by nature, which to me, of course, is the most natural way to be, and one which is certainly not uncommon. Nevertheless, my cultural identity has always been questioned by some… mostly in the form of well-meaning curious questions such as “do you feel more this or that” but sometimes aggressively, “the problem with you is that you don’t have proper roots”. The first question would confuse me as a child… how could anyone possibly feel like a whole country?! The second bemused me, realising that I had no roots protruding from my feet and thus was free to wander from place to place... I joke a little, but how else can you respond to such an unashamed attack on a young person’s fragile, developing sense of identity? These accusations showed me at an early age that being other, whatever that “other” may be, seemed to bother some individuals and challenged their own sense of identity. My mere existence seemed to unsettle their normative cultural assumptions.’
entangle/embrace sets out to celebrate these entanglements. The beauty of being diverse and distinct whilst being related and sharing similarities—the EU’s motto for example is “united in diversity”. Stressing ecological concerns entangle/embrace reminds us that we are intimately entwined with, and dependent on, our environment—in these troubled times of ecological crisis, the scholar Donna Haraway tells us that we have to think about how we live ‘with’ the word, not simply ‘in’ it, because we are in fact the world, we are not creatures who float around the world, we are absolutely and intrinsically linked to the earth. We breathe and we die with it.
To contribute to the project, or for further information, please email Angharad Cooper (Producer) on info@angharadcooper.com
