When fabrics speak volumes.

The light envelops the walls in a play of ornamental colors, like a carpet of different identities. 1 pattern = 1 meaning? The boundaries between cultures have long since become blurred – they are interwoven like individual threads in a delicate embroidery that becomes the carrier of culture and history.

Not only in the eyes of the beholder, but also in their minds and hearts, this image of cultures is thus much more than the sum of its parts.

KLANGLICHT 2018

The artist Azra Akšamija, who grew up in Graz after the Yugoslavian war, deals with cultural and religious constructions of identity. With the aim of promoting community, overcoming trauma and enabling socially and politically valuable innovations, the architectural historian traces technological and material knowledge. As an art installation, “Diaspora Scroll” is a first version of a growing fabric and memory scroll that collects embroidery patterns and interweaves local and migrated knowledge. The light installation thus appears as a digital overlap of different ethnic ornaments, like a manuscript written in many different ways.

Concert tip: QUARTETT FÜR DAS ENDE DER ZEIT

1941 Nancy, France.

In the bitter cold of January, 400 Frenchmen and the German camp authorities gather in a German Wehrmacht prison camp to forget the war for a short time: With the utmost attention and understanding – in the words of composer Olivier Messiaen – the men listened to the premiere of the ‘Quatuor pour la fin du temps’. The “Quartet for the End of Time” not only reflected Messiaen’s deep reverence for the divine mystery of the apocalypse, his music was also able to bring the hostile soldiers into harmony for a moment.

Ringing KLANGLICHT in Graz Mariahilf

The “Quatuor pour la fin du temps” also played twice each evening in the Mariahilferkirche during the festival, accompanied by atmospheric candlelight. Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is not only a moving impression of the past, but also carries deep meaning for our present. Members of the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra will present the chamber music work, which was premiered in January 1941. The line-up includes Kurt Mörth on clarinet, Pauli Jämsä on piano, Fuyu Iwaki on violin and Gergely Mohl on cello.