Sound System Music Residency 2019

Here she is. The Sound System Residency winner for 2019: Ida Warhol

A singer and songwriter and harp player who fuses beautiful original melodies with her Polish language.

Ida a.k.a Olivia Warhol is a singer and producer who creates celestial visions wrapped in intricate harmonies, melodious harp plucking and a bucolic warmth. The Sydney born artist spent several years in her ancestral home of Poland, relearning her culture and language, developing a fascination with polish folk melodies. Her music offers a blend of her contemporary Australian experience and eastern European sensibilities.

"My parents are both Polish and I’ve had the privilege of living here in Sydney and in my mother’s home town by the Baltic coast. I am so grateful I am able to speak the language and celebrate this in my music."- Ida Warhol

Ida uses her classical training and Eastern European roots to create a blend of art and folk music, wrapped in a melancholy pop form. She is currently writing her own material and producing her music, Ida will be releasing an EP in 2020.

Follow Ida Warhol at @idawarhol

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Massive thanks to our supporting panel members: OKENYO Antonia Gauci Sydney Opera House Sepora Marcus Whale Milan Ring VULI El Far3i-الفرعي Arik Blum ALPHAMAMA

Not to mention, thank you to all those who took part of the application process and stay tuned to hear what's coming from the talented winner, Ida Warhol.

Sound System Music Residency

The Sound System Music Residency is a music program offered by Lost In Books together with Create NSW. The program partners with local artists and musicians from South West and Western Sydney to develop new musical work that celebrates languages other than English.

Visit lostinbooks.com.au to learn more.

Tongue Tied and Fluent Launch

Is Australia ready for the multilingual mindset?

To celebrate the launch of a new five-part documentary series for ABC RN's Earshot program on multilingualism in Australia, LOST IN BOOKS will be hosted the launch party for Tongue Tied and Fluent to thank everyone who’s been so generously involved in the making of the program. We played excerpts from our series, which has been a huge undertaking over the past two years.

Special thanks to Shelia Pham, Masako Fukui, Zarlasht Sawari and the audience for sharing their experiences, ideas and afternoon.

Click here to listen to the EARSHOT Podcast

HACK Sounds 107

Hack Sounds is an initiative from 107 Projects, offering an entry point into the world of electronic music making.

It’s a four inspiration-filled sessions held at Lost In Books kicking off on 26 April 2019. Open to all adults aged 18+ interested in making music with inspiring professionals in English and Arabic, participants will get the chance to create and record a bilingual song with Hack Sounds 107's artists Lama Zakharia- لمى زخريا and Peregrin Chiara

Hack Sounds program is designed with the beginner in mind, offering tools and teaching approaches geared at giving participants the fundamentals to begin their adventure into electronic music-making and production.

Thanks to all our partners and collaborators for making this happen.

SSI Arts & Culture CORE Community Services STARTTS Hack Sounds Lama Zakharia- لمى زخريا Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre Campbelltown Arts Centre Byds - Bankstown Arts Centre Multicultural Youth Affairs Network - MYAN NSW Create NSW APRA AMCOS Multicultural NSW 107 Bashar Hanna PYT Fairfield

Bilingual artists Lama Zakharia- لمى زخريا and Peregrin Chiara with HACK SOUNDs participants and volunteers.

LOST IN BOOKS: Story time at The Biennale of Sydney with Sheila Pham and Zarlasht Sarwari

We are so excited and proud to be part of the The Biennale of Sydney’s Family Day on Cockatoo Island. LOST IN BOOKS hosted a great program of fun and art, and bilingual story times at The Superposition Studio featuring a stellar line up of bilingual storytellers:

Sheila Pham (English/Vietnamese) - Read books The Green Sheep by Mem Fox, Where is My Home? By Nur-El-Hudaa Jaffar and Lim Leei lees and sang some Bob Dylan songs.

Zarlasht Sarwari (English/Dari) read books I am Australian Too by Mem Fox, and books by John Klassen.

Lillian Rodrigues-Pang (English/Spanish) lead with a traditional Cuban story, folktales and shared her own original stories.

Bilingual story times are a great way to introduce kids to new languages, and to decentralise their own.

Sheila Pham (English/Vietnamese)

Zarlasht Sarwari (English/Dari)

LOST IN BOOKS: Mid-Autumn Open Mic Night

Thank you to all our wonderful performers at open mic night last night. We enjoyed poets, filmmakers, theatre directors, music-makers and hula-hoopers. What a warm and interesting night in Fairfield.

FLAME Festival 2018

Fairfield Live Art, Music and Entertainment (FLAME) Festival is a new free Council event that will showcase the sounds and creations of talented musicians and artists from Western Sydney. Flame will be held across several participating Fairfield venues, including restaurants, a bowling alley, a bookshop and other locations, bringing colour and energy from up to 90 performances to Fairfield City Centre for one amazing evening.

In addition to free entertainment, people can come along and enjoy authentic and delicious Middle Eastern, Latin American and other international cuisine from Fairfield’s many eateries.

Flame Festival has been made possible through funding from Create NSW on behalf of the NSW State Government, in partnership with the Live Music Office.

Girl Power at Lost In Books

LOST IN BOOKS hosted powerful performances from an all-women lineup of fantastic musicians from Western Sydney featuring Olina & Ange, MARA DUKE, Tru' and Sepora.

Olina & Ange. These two talents have wowed the room with their awesome music as part of #FLAME18!

MARADUKE rocking the stage at LOST IN BOOKS now.

Tru covering Joni Mitchell

In Other Words Festival 2018

LOST IN BOOKS held our first annual IN OTHER WORDS Festival on the 23rd and 24th of February 2018. We celebrated UNESCO’s International Day Of Mother Language through FREE community events around storytelling, music, panel discussions, film, workshops, kids activities, a multicultural feast and more.

Talks and panel discussions explored themes on mother language, identity and place, connection to & separation from home, family and community.

Big thanks to Create NSW and Australia Council for the Arts for their support for the IN OTHER WORDS residencies and this Festival!

Event Program

Friday 24 February 2018

5pm Bilingual Storytelling Session for kids and families (in LOST IN BOOKS)

6pm Opening Ceremony feat. a Welcome To Country, Lion Dance and the Choir of Love (OUTSIDE STAGE)

7pm Screening of award-winning short film "Miro" and a Q+A with the Director (in LOST IN BOOKS)

7.30pm MULTILINGUAL POETRY SLAM presented by WORD TRAVELS feat. Hasitha Adhikariarachchi and Zaya Barroso (OUTSIDE STAGE)

8pm INTO THE WILD DISCO - a dance party for kids featuring music from around the world (HALL STAGE)

All night - MURALISTO live painting of a public artwork with artist Christina Huynh

All night - Delicious Egyptian and Cambodian street food

This is the radiant Aunty Wendy Morgan who shared a Welcome To Country with us. Wendy has been an activist and Aboriginal rights advocate for more that 30 years, and is a member of the Gandagarra Local Aboriginal Land Council. She is the founder of Guntawang Aboriginal Women's group in Fairfield for women to come together.

The Festival featured a special musical collaboration with Yutaro on guitar, Adnan on oud, Jess on bass, Mehdi on santour and Harri on beats/electronics/synth.

Listen to the Lost In Books Multicultural Jam here:

Chun Yin Rainbow Chan did a special song number with her mum Irene Cheung to celebrate International Mother Language Day.

"Sydney-based artist, Chun Yin Rainbow Chan, works across music, performance and installation. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Australia, Rainbow is interested in mistranslations, diaspora and the effects of globalisation on modern Chinese society. Rainbow will perform selected folk songs in the Cantonese dialect, Weitouhua, which is spoken by Indigenous inhabitants of Hong Kong. Closely tied to the community’s agrarian lifestyle, Weitou folk music is an important relic of Hong Kong local culture. Rainbow will be joined by her mother Irene, who is a member of the Weitou community, in a short presentation about cultural preservation, language and song."

Listen to the mother and daughter duet here:

"Writing in the spaces between languages"

will be kicking of our panels, 12.30pm Sat at our IN OTHER WORDS FESTIVAL. It will be a discussion exploring the writing process of multilingual Australian writers. Stories, ideas and memories from other languages are rich and vital sources for writing, but there are many specific challenges in trying to represent this complexity in multicultural stories in Australia. If your story involves characters speaking in your mother tongue, how do you capture that in written English? When do you keep words in other languages in their original forms and when do you translate? What if you speak a language where the written version of it is largely inaccessible to you but you want to incorporate it in your writing?

Join Sheila Pham in conversation with Sirine Demachkie, Zarlasht Sarwari, Eda Gunaydin and Frances An on at Saturday the 24th of Feb at our IN OTHER WORDS FESTIVAL 12.30pm!

Hasitha Adhikariarachchi was the winner of 2017 Multilingual Poetry Slam and will be reprising her winning poem at our Multilingual Poetry Slam on Friday night for IN OTHER WORDS Festival, Feb 23 at 7.30pm!

Hasitha is a writer and was raised in Sri Lanka, now calls Sydney home. She’s the winner of ‘NSW Multilingual Poetry Slam 2017’. Hasitha has been previously published in Write to Reconcile II anthology and she is currently working on her debut fantasy story-book. Hasitha recently took a step-forward by initiating a publishing house (www.queenofsea.com) to invest in publishing the work of unpublished Sri Lankan female writers.

Festival kicks off at 5pm, Slam at 7.30pm!

This is the beautiful Zaya Barroso. Zaya will be doing a special musical performance to wrap up our Multilingual Poetry Slam Friday Feb 23, ie. tomorrow!

Her commanding and tender voice and words will speak to the heart. Don't miss this special performance!

There are still a few spots left to compete in the multilingual poetry slam from 7.30pm! You can sign up on the night to perform a 3 minute poem. Do it!

8pm African Moon, LOST IN BOOKS stage

Experience the traditional storytelling, dancing and singing of Sierra Leone, passed down through the generations by village elders who would draw young people around them at night under the moonlight as they told stories from their own ancestors.

Yarrie Bangura is a formal refugee from Sierra Leone, she been in Australia for over 13 years. She is writer, performer, musician and public speaker. In 2015-16, she was a performer and writer in The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe which toured Australia and the UK culminating in performances at the Southbank Centre and the Sydney Opera House. She is currently an international development student and entrepreneur Aunty’s Ginger Tonic. She also is an ambassador for Stand Up, The Big Anxiety Festival and is a Special Youth Representative for Australia for UNHCR.

Sarmad Amir performing at IN OTHER WORDS

An incredible group of people on yesterday's "Acceptance bs Tolerance" panel. An important and generous discussion, for all to hear. Lucky you'll be able to soon.

Thankyou so much to Andrea Lim, Rhyan Clapham, Monique Dam, Randa Kattan and Carrie Hou.

This is Canberra's Mother Tongue Multilingual Poetry Group, who will be performing "Homespun" at our IN OTHER WORDS festival this Sat 24th Feb. Absolute guests of honour Keep an eye out for times!

"Homespun is a collaborative poem that explores ideas about displacement, belonging, connection and home in six languages. It is written in 6 languages of Bahasa Malay, Serbian, Persian, Azerbaijani, Spanish and English side by side. This piece debuted at the Noted Festival in 2017 and has been performed at events in Canberra and Sydney to great response. The writers and performers are: Asefeh Zeinalabedini, Anita Patel, Vesna Cvjeticanin, Karina Bontes Forward."

"Acceptance vs Tolerance" Panel 3.30pm Sat 24th Feb at IN OTHER WORDS Festival.

"This panel explores Australia's complex relationship with diversity. We hear that we are the "most multicultural nation on earth", but how does that translate in practice? And without more meat to the bones, don't we risk collapsing into a food court of great food, but without a shared table?"

This is Randa Kattan. She is the CEO of Arab Council Australia. She will be appearing on a panel facilitated by Carrie Hou with Monique Dam, Andrea Lim, Dobby (Rhyan Clapham).