HOME IS WHERE THE WASHING MACHINE IS
Workshop with Irina Karamarkovic

Within the project “From diaspora to diversities”

Art café Menada, Skoopje, 16.09, 18.00h

The wedding of my cousins in Skopje was the first time ever I sang on the real stage. And here I am, almost 34 years later, coming back to this town to initialize this workshop which is going to raise more questions than it can answer.
Art is diversity and the artists constitute the very state of transnationalism. There is no normative image of what an artist ought to be like. All of them are different, and this is exactly where the beauty lies. Unfortunately most of the time the artists are asked where they come from, while the central question remains unasked: Where are they going?
An artist is not a property of someone or something. No country can claim the artist. An artist has a crucial socio-regulative relevance and influences the society.
In this workshop, we will examine the necessity of forward motion in a life of an artist, as well as a variety of ways and reasons to leave, stay, come back, leave again…
Performative part of the workshop is there to translate the reality of an artist, experiences of leaving freely, being forced to leave, coming back, waiting, being exposed, feelings of disconnectedness and loss….

The theoretical, scientific and practical parts of the workshop are intertwined with a performance.
The central questions are how to endure in a fight for staying in motion, how to stop the brain drain within our societies and how to create conditions for staying, leaving, coming back and change?
This is an open type workshop and everybody is welcome to react, raise questions and get new thought processes started.
The workshop length: 90-120 minutes.

Irina Karamarković was born in Priština to a family with a long tradition in music. Most of the time, she is a singer, composer, arranger, author, performer, actress, vocal technique teacher, ensemble coach and music researcher. Apart from that, she is reciting, playing some instruments, cooking vegetarian food, as well as thinking, reading, listening and travelling a lot. She collaborates with other artists beyond the musical sphere, engages in cultural politics and has a great passion for table tennis, languages and urban guerrilla gardening.·
After being enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade (Department of Ethnology and Anthropology), she completed her studies in the field of Jazz Voice at the Jazz Institute of University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz. She studied with Mark Murphy, Jay Clayton, Sheila Jordan, Michele Hendricks, Tom Lellis, Marguerite Juenemann, etc.·
She has a PhD in Philosophy and her doctoral dissertation explores the presence of music from Southeast Europe on the Austrian jazz scene – sociocultural, economic, political and musical aspects (University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Institute for Jazz Research).·
She is a multi-dimensional live performer: from a cappella to big bands and/or electronics.
Up to now, she has been performing on many international jazz, world music, folk, alternative, and experimental festivals, singing concerts and gigs with numerous bands and artists, doing recordings, rehearsing, implementing promotional events, organizing concerts and readings, publishing articles, teaching people how to deal with their voices and winning some prizes.·
She is a member of the Cultural Advisory Council of the city of Graz and a cultural coordinator·of the Assembly of European Citizens, Paris.·
www.irinakaramarkovic.com