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).