1 Summer, 100 Events – Free and outdoors. The Kultursommerfestival Berlin invites you to embark on a summertime journey of cultural discovery at unique and unusual locations throughout the city. The programme of events offers something for everyone, including concerts, performances, film screenings, readings and much more. The Kultursommerfestival is conceived and implemented by Kulturprojekte Berlin and forms part of the DRAUSSENSTADT initiative.
Musicboard Berlin is programme partner of Kultursommerfestival 2023 and is cooperating with Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e.V. Together, we invite you to the event PoliSounds, looking forward to an evening dedicated to politics in pop culture.
PoliSounds – Wie politisch ist Popkultur?
Tuesday, 11 July 2023
5:30 – 10:00 p.m.
B-Part am Gleisdreieck
Luckenwalder Str. 6b, 10963 Berlin
Free admission
With T’neeya, Anthony Hüseyin, and Ebow, three exceptional artists who have received a Musicboard funding or residency at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles will be on stage at B-Part am Gleisdreieck. The author Alice Hasters, Ebow and the journalist Marlene Grunert explore the question of how political pop culture is in a panel discussion. All three were guests at Villa Aurora or Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles during a residency in 2023. The discussion is hosted by journalist Salwa Houmsi.
The discussion is held in German. The venue is accessible to wheelchair users.
TIMETABLE
6:00 p.m.: T’neeya (live)
7:00 p.m.: How political is pop culture? Conversation about expressions of politics and the political in the arts – Cooperation between Musicboard Berlin and Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V.
with Alice Hasters, Ebow and Marlene Grunert, hosted by Salwa Houmsi
8:00 p.m.: Anthony Hüseyin (live)
9:00 p.m.: Ebow (live)
WITH
Alice Hasters
Alice Hasters is a journalist, author, and podcaster. She studied at the German School of Journalism in Munich and after graduating worked for the Tagesschau and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, among others. Since 2016, Hasters has been producing the podcast ›Feuer & Brot‹ (tr: Fire & Bread) about politics and pop culture together with Maximiliane Häcke. In her publications, she deals with the topics of Afro-German identity, racism, and intersectionality. Hasters was named culture journalist of the year in 2020 by medium magazine. She is the author of ›Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen‹, published by Hanser Verlag, and was a 2023 Fellow at the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.
Anthony Hüseyin
Anthony Hüseyin is a non-binary musician and performance artist of Kurdish-Turkish and Arabic descent who works with voice, text, film and installation. Their works combine the personal and political to explore memory, identity, and body. Raised in Urfa in Southeastern Turkey, where they learned traditional local music, they went on to study both classical and jazz singing in Istanbul and Rotterdam. They released three albums: ›Safran‹ (2012), ›The Lucky One‹ (2017), and ›Project O‹ (2022), and 5 singles. They taught singing for 7 years at Rotterdam Conservatory, Codarts, won the second prize as a singer-songwriter in The Netherlands with ›The Lucky One‹ and received a grant in 2020 for ›Project O‹. In 2022 they released the album and opened Queer Week with it at Maxim Gorki Theater. They performed at venues and festivals like Fusion Festival, Club Robert Johnson Offenbach, Moods Jazz Club Zurich, and MusicMatch Dresden. Their recent works were commissioned by Marina Abramovic Institute. Currently Anthony is writing their new album and working as a Musical Director, composer, actor, and singer for the play ›Dschinns‹ at Maxim Gorki Theater. It is based on the novel ›Dschinns‹ by Fatma Aydemir, which was shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2022.
Ebow
Ebow first came to attention with guerrilla performances in laundromats, supermarkets and demonstrations. Nowadays, the artist, who lives in Vienna and Berlin, performs on more conventional stages but remains as provocative and political as ever. Whether solo or as a member of the Gaddafi Gals, she raps against sexism, racism and homophobia, among other things, and in favour of an open, supportive and equal society. On ›Canê‹ – her fourth album, the title Kurdish for »darling« or »soul« – Ebow not only goes back to the roots, representing Munich-Giesing and Free Kurdistan, but also gets to the bottom of the contradictory desires of our day and age: fast cars and political struggle, timid flirtations and the everlasting search for trouble, Prada bags and protests. Ebow is both resistant and hyped, street and softie, highly poetic and not giving a fuck. Or as she puts it, »My biggest flex is being myself.«
Marlene Grunert
Marlene Grunert was born in 1986. After beginning to study theater and cultural studies in Leipzig, she studied law in Hamburg, Paris and Berlin, focusing on European and international law. Meanwhile, she worked at the Chair of Public Law of Prof. Dr. Arndt Schmehl and at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts. She completed her legal traineeship at the Berlin Superiour Court, with stages in the cultural department of the German Federal Foreign Office and at PEN America in New York. She worked for the Scientific Services of the German Bundestag and a member of parliament before joining the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as a trainee in 2016. Since 2018, she has been working there as a political editor, with a focus on legal topics, in particular the Federal Constitutional Court.
Salwa Houmsi
Salwa Houmsi is one of the most versatile and exciting presenters the German media industry is currently producing. In recent years, she has established herself as one of the most important and strongest voices of her generation. And she puts her critical voice to good use: in front of the microphone, as well as the camera. From 2016 to 2019, she was the face of the investigative journalistic, socially critical and multiple award-winning ZDF/ funk web video format ›Jäger & Sammler‹. Following this, she and Jo Schück have formed the moderation duo for the debate format ›13 Questions‹, on ZDF Kultur and ZDF Heute since 2020. In 2021, the the format produced a special season on the Bundestag elections, which was broadcast on ZDF Neo. Salwa Houmsi was part of the award-winning WDR COSMO podcast ›Machiavelli – Rap and Politics‹ with Jan Kawelke and Vassili Golod. Since November 2022 she hosts the podcast ›Hotz & Houmsi‹, together with Sebastian Hotz.
T’neeya
Born Tania Takoh, T’neeya is an Afro-R&B artist. Her Cameroonian father and German mother provided influences at an early age. Her father’s love of his guitar and her mother’s love for Gospel music planted musical seeds in her. At the age of 13, she started writing music in boarding school in Bamenda. With her school desk among other objects as percussion, she would come up with melodies and rhythms effortlessly and seemingly out of thin air. T’neeya moved to Berlin right after boarding school and enrolled in HTW university where she studied fashion design. Music kept gnawing at her throughout and she eventually succumbed to it, pursuing her dreams after leaving school prematurely, much to her parents’ consternation. Her fusion of several influences from childhood are central to her music. A polyglot, T’neeya is comfortable whether in a small town or in the cosmopolitan enclaves of Berlin. She hopes her music can be the bridge to connect people from vastly different backgrounds.
The event is part of Kultursommerfestival Berlin 2023 and takes place in cooperation with Kulturprojekte Berlin.
