Message 5: Zola Chichmintseva-Kondamambou

Hi. My name is Zola Chichmintseva-Kondamambou, and I’m here to answer the collective’s question “How to be next to each other”. I’d like to answer in two parts. First of all, being next to each other is always a compromise. A compromise between silence and talking, it’s a conversation that at times might be silent, and thus it’s important to know when and where to speak, and when and where to listen, to acknowledge, and to advocate. It’s the importance of space, and, sometimes, the importance of rage.

And as for part two, I’d like to read an extract to you from a book by Saidiya Hartman called Lose Your Mother*. In it, she confronts the trajectories of deportation to link slavery from one side of the Atlantics to the other. The French translation comes with a foreword by Maboula Soumahoro, who also translated the work of Hartman into French.

« Quelle que soit la formulation, la question demeure: ce retour est-il possible ? Si la réponse est oui, une nouvelle question se pose immédiatement: de quelle(s) façon(s) ?

Dans tous les cas, il faudra reprendre la mer pour retrouver la mère.

L’ouvrage de Saidiya Hartman se fonde sur une quête. La réponse se trouve au bout du chemin, inévitablement au bout du petit matin. Mais la route est longue, ses embranchements sans fin.

Les conversations panafricanistes sont difficiles de facto, car y prennent part le continent africain et sa diaspora. L’un et l’autre sont séparés par l’histoire, l’océan, la douleur et l’arrachement. Qui a raison? Quelle voix doit prévaloir? Le continent et sa si grande diversité? La diaspora et sa multitude? Est-ce que le premier peut écouter et entendre la seconde? La seconde peut-elle écouter et entendre ce que le premier a à partager de sa propre expérience? Seule l’écoute mutuelle sera féconde. Sans elle, nulle avancée ne sera jamais possible, ni pour l’un ni pour l’autre. Ton pied, mon pied. On est ensemble. Ou on meurt ensemble. Tout est affaire de choix. »

Translation:

“Whatever the wording, the question remains: is this return possible? If the answer is yes, a new question immediately arises: How?

In any case, it will be necessary to set sail again to find the Mother. Saidiya Hartman’s book is based on a quest. The answer lies at the end of the road and inevitably once morning has broken. But the road is long, with endless forks.

Pan-Africanist conversations are de facto difficult because they involve the African continent and its diaspora. Both are separated by history, the ocean, pain and uprooting. Who is right? Which voice should take precedence? The continent and its great diversity?

The diaspora and its multitude? Can the former listen and hear the latter? Can the latter listen and hear what the former has to share from their own experience? Only listening to one another will be fruitful.

Without it, no progress will ever be possible, neither for the one nor for the other. Your foot, my foot. We are together, or we die together.

It’s all a matter of choice."

*—Saidiya Hartman, À perte de mère – Sur les routes atlantiques de l’esclavage, French translation and foreword by Maboula Soumahoro, Paris, Brook, 2023

Recorded in Les Lilas, France

Original languages of contribution: English, French

Message 4: Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė

For our contribution, we would like to submit a short extract from our performance piece BROOD. In this part, a singer performs multiple voices of the polyphonic Lithuanian song Rūta Tūta in the tradition of Sutartinės. This Lithuanian multi-part singing tradition is most often performed by women. The selected song uses the rue plant (rūta) as personification for female experience and focuses on women’s connection to land through work.

Tūta, tūtela,

Tūta, tūta.

Mes dvi sesiulas,

Tūta, tūta.

Tūta, tūtela,

Tūta, tūta.

Žalioj lunkelaj,

Tūta, tūta.

Tūta, tūtela,

Tūta, tūta.

Šienelį grėbjam,

Tūta, tūta.

Translation:

Tūta, tūtela,

Tūta, tūta.

Us two sisters,

Tūta, tūta.

Tūta, tūtela,

Tūta, tūta.

In a green meadow,

Tūta, tūta.

Tūta, tūtela,

Tūta, tūta.

We’ve been raking the hay,

Tūta, tūta.

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, BROOD (Scene 3, audio extract), 2023

Original music: OXHY

Sound design: Haraldur Thrastarson

Voice: Justyna Chaberek

Recorded in Berlin, Germany

Message 3: Yana Bachynska

To be together, we need to listen. We need to be attentive, to put ourselves in another’s shoes. Being together means considering the experience of others. It’s almost an impossible task because understanding comes from shared experience, and if that’s absent, we have to engage our imagination—much of it—to be together.Most interpersonal conflicts arise from misunderstanding, from not knowing or [not] recognizing another’s experience. Understanding the reasons behind things allows us to calm down and accept the differences of others. This approach not only strengthens our bonds with others but also with ourselves. It helps us forgive ourselves, love ourselves, and, in turn, love others. This mindset is applicable everywhere, except in the face of physical aggression. With that, it’s different. Trying to understand the reasons for physical violence only destroys you, turning you into an aggressor yourself. You can turn the other cheek to a slap, but not to a knife or a bullet.

These gunshots I recorded a few days ago. These sounds I hear almost every day. They serve as a reminder of death, violent death, and of those with whom it’s impossible to reason. They also bring me closer to those I struggle to understand — those who don’t want to kill or harm me, but whom I still find hard to grasp. Through these sounds, I feel a duty to love others, a duty to imagine and understand them.

Recorded in Lviv, Ukraine

Original language of the contribution: English