Kuhmo Music Festival, Finland - setting up
Ungrievable Lives, Wigmore Hall, London
Ungrievable Lives, Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
Ungrievable Lives, Vienna Konzerthaus
Ungrievable Lives, Concertgebouw Brugge
UNGRIEVABLE LIVES, 13 children’s dresses handmade from lifejackets the artist gathered from the Lifejacket Graveyard, Lesvos
Each dress represents 1 of the 13 million child refugees worldwide. Today as a consequence of the war in Ukraine, this number is now 15 million
The dresses signify the absent body, evoking memory, absence and loss. Dirty, torn, patched together, a mixture of faded oranges, pinks and reds, at first glance they look like any small 3/4 year old dress a young child may wear, your child, my child, any child…
The scales, an ancient symbol of justice, signify the weighing of the body and soul, embodying the difficult question: “What is the differential value of a Western life compared to the value of the life of the refugee, arriving at the border of the Western world?”
The piles of sand at the bottom of each dress represent physical/ real, political/ fictional, and cultural/ symbolic borders and - like sands - are forever shifting and changing over time. Man-made boundaries, including linguistic, economic and social, conspire to create further division. Yet the movement of people has been constant throughout history. Migrants, refugees, the displaced and stateless, continue to make up an increasing number of the world population and the symbolic boundaries of identity and culture which make nations, the segmentation between “us” and “them” which is so apparent today will, over time, become redrawn as new forms of cultural diversity are introduced.
Bray, inspired by Burraway’s art installation Ungrievable Lives, has responded to the migrant crisis with her very first string quartet - performed by the Castalian String Quartet, together they tour to venues across Europe over the course of 2022-2024, including Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wigmore Hall London, Wiener Konzerthaus, Kuhmo Festival Finland, Sante Fe, Oxford University Faculty of Music, National Concert Hall, Dublin, Concertgebouw Brugge and Berlin Konzerthaus
UNGRIEVABLE LIVES, a collaboration between artist Caroline Burraway and composer Charlotte Bray
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/castalian-string-quartet-review-a-profound-tribute-to-refugee-children-l5jjkjnrn
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/mar/30/wigmore-hall-music-and-art-combine-to-highlight-child-refugee-crisis
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical%20music%20news/article/wigmore-hall-premiere-to-highlight-experience-of-refugees
https://www.elbphilharmonie.de/en/whats-on/castalian-string-quartet/16743
https://wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/castalian-string-quartet-202210211930
https://konzerthaus.at/konzert/eventid/59917
https://music.web.ox.ac.uk/event/castalian-string-quartet
https://www.nch.ie/events-tickets-whats-on/migrations-string-quartet-weekend/
Ungrievable Lives, New Chapel, Oxford University
Ungrievable Lives, Wigmore Hall London
Ungrievable Lives - Konzerthaus Berlin, The Peace Program
Ungrievable Lives, close up Winnie the Pooh dress, Konzerthaus Berlin
Ungrievable Lives - Salter scales, an ancient symbol of justice, signify the weighing of the body and soul, embodying the difficult question: “What is the differential value of a Western life compared to the value of the life of the refugee, arriving at the border of the Western world?”