No Hevdem

Khabat Abas is an experimental, improviser cellist,  and composer from Kurdistan-Iraq who likes to break the rules; she experiments with the cello structurally and musically, improvising, composing, doing a sound installation, creating diverse cellos, and using her own body. Her composition is a tool to amplify voiceless story and  using diverse materials to protest against oppressions rooted in social and political systems. She questions what is out of bounds, that raising the possibilities of sounds that contrast with traditional musical values and cannot be controlled. Khabat has performed with various ensembles, including the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, Sulaymaniyah string orchestra, Gothenburg Academic Symphony Orchestra, and the Non-Ensemble for experimental music in Sweden, London Improvisation Orchestra and ONe_Orchestra New, Noise women.

Mohammed Ali (Moe Ali) is an improviser – experimental sound artist based in Baghdad – Iraq, started composing music in 2011. Mixing
ambient / drone music with elements of noise and fields recordings. Moe began experimenting with sound processing softwares and mutilated stretched fields recordings to create a compilation of minimal & complex pieces of music which are influenced by Nature, human emotions, mental illness, sleep and subconscious. Moe been releasing ambient music under the name Detachment 九 and also perform vocals & ambient field in a Black Metal band Melancholy Of Life.

Hadi Bastani is a visiting researcher at the University of Greenwich conducting research on immersive composition. He has released music via Room40, Opal Tapes, and Flaming Pines among others and performed at international festivals including Klangteppich Berlin, CTM Berlin, Sonorities Belfast, TADAEX Tehran, and ARTFUTURA London. His research/creative outputs have been also represented through popular media including BBC 3, Deutschlandfunk kultur, The Wire, Resonance FM, Quietus, Pirate Radio, and Shondaland. He has created radio and podcast series for BBC World Service, Resonance FM, and Iranwire. His book on Iranian contemporary experimental electronic music is due for publication via Routledge in 2024.

Emily DeDakis is a writer, dramaturg and producer from the southeast USA, now living in north Belfast. She holds MA & PhD degrees in creative writing from the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast and is associate artist with Fighting Words NI, mentoring young playwrights. Emily’s writing has appeared in Dead Housekeeping, Ulster Tatler, Yellow Nib, Of Mouth, Choice Words and on BBC radio and television. Recent writing includes The Party Party (The MAC), Because Swiping Made My Grandson Stop Believing in Love (BBC Radio 4), Two by Two (Household), The Garden of Remembrance for Bygone Phallic Symbols (Origin Theatre NYC) and Last Night in Belfast (BBC 3). Emily sings in the experimental choir HIVE and often creates multimedia collaborations with sound artists – such as Freak Floods (with Úna Monaghan), Driving Music (with Una Lee/Quills That Whisper) and Stowaway City (with Michael McKnight).

Adam Denton is an artist working with various media and materials, including sound, text and video. He releases solo music under the name SW1n-Hunter and has done so on labels such as Opal Tapes. Between 2013-2021 he ran The Old Police House, a place for exploratory sonic art in Newcastle, UK, alongside Mariam Rezaei. Denton is a PhD candidate at SARC, Queens University Belfast: his research interests include situated sonic investigation in contested urban areas, ‘unfinished’ and ad hoc spaces for performance, the politics and ethics of touring, noise and embodied performance writing. He currently lives in London, UK.

Bryar Mohialdeen is a musician, composer, and teacher who has participated in various musical festivals and events both in Iraq and abroad. His works have been performed at prestigious venues such as Morgenland Festival in Osnabruck, Erbil, SPACE21 in Slemani, Cultural festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, Western Michigan University, and YES Academy American Voices. Bryar is currently teaching music at the Institute of Fine Arts in Slemani and also works at Suli Media. He received his Diploma in Music from the Institute of Fine Arts in Slemani in 2007, and later earned his Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition from the University of Slemani in 2015. Some of his notable compositions include Danwe 2013, Gian Gian 2014, Brya 2014, Shwane 2015, Aré Béna 2016, Amrekem 2017, Ser Leser Rani 2018, My Mother 2019, Situation 2020, Timing 2021, Flag Day 2022, and Cl Dareke 2023.

Hardi Kurda is a composer, sound artist, researcher, improviser, and founder of SPACE21 for experimental music and sound art in Kurdistan-Iraq. He was awarded the fifth Radio Art Residency in Halle, where he developed his works for radio. Hardi’s works are based on his personal listening experience when he moved illegally to Europe; he explored listening to other senses. Hardi wants to explore other possibilities for the listener to interact with the sounds, materials, and space through collecting information from everyday materials. He called The Found Score another medium to extend listening. Latest works: Illegal Performance for interactive radio antenna and Radiola Springs (2022), Dukan-Dam, the found score of the power energy network map (2021), Everything is Illegal, the found score of collected illegal stories (2020) & Listening’s Urgency, the found score of the radio circuit board (2020).

Rodrigo Romero-Flores (Chile)  Poet, visual and sound artist. He has finished a BA in Hispanic Language and Literature at  Universidad de Chile, 2004. In 2021, he finished Field Recording: Soundscape Composition at Goldsmiths, University of London.He has participated in exhibitions, festivals, performances and collaborative works in South America, Europe and the United States. In 2022, he was awarded a grant from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for an artistic residency in Iceland. Since 2022 he has been a commissioned artist for Sonic Arts Research Centre SARC at Queen’s Belfast University.  In 2023 was released “Tides”, a live improvisation performance curated by Extreme Chill Festival. This 2024 he was awarded a grant to Mentoring Support Scheme for Northern Ireland Writers, by the Irish Writers Centre.

Paul Stapleton is an improviser and sound artist originally from Southern California. He designs and performs with a variety of his custom-made musical instruments in settings ranging from Echtzeitmusik venues in Berlin to the annual NIME conference. Paul is currently Professor of Music at SARC, Queen’s University Belfast.

Georgios Varoutsos is a sonic artist and researcher from Montreal, Canada. He is currently completing his PhD studies at SARC, Queen’s University Belfast. He has graduated with a Master’s in  Research, Pass with Distinction, in Arts & Humanities with a focus in Sonic Arts at QUB. He has also completed a BFA with Distinction in  Electroacoustic Studies and a BA in Anthropology, both from Concordia University in  Montreal. He is currently working on research consisting of sonic arts, spatial audio,  urban arts, sound studies, and socially engaged arts.

This project is supported by the British Council in Northern Ireland and Iraq.