The “Community of Grieving” is an intimate ritual that creates space for mourning over what we as a collective have lost during the pandemic. It searches for new forms of being together. The ritual engages music, choreography, and a new media installation. In terms of music, the project refers to the Eastern European tradition of lamentation and evening liturgy, i.e. vespers present in many Christian rites. The movement of the performers is oriented towards holding the space for the audience to go through a landscape of emotions. The new media installation is a series of holograms created by flat screens, positioned on tall stage tables, forming sort of fire pillars in a temple.
Originally, the work consisted of an electronic music concert employing singing, synthesizers, and advanced digital audio transformations, a choreographic score for the audience to do at home, and an online chat after the concert presentation. The work was commissioned and premiered in this form at the Unsound Intermission (internet edition) in October 2020 and financed by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw. It was presented via Radio Kapitał and at the Discord Channel of the Unsound Festival.
Zosia Hołubowska is an Austria-based, Polish-born sound artist, researcher, music producer, and curator working in Vienna since 2017. Julia Giertz is a Swedish composer and sound artist.