Promised Lands – part 1 Flow Motion

A 90 min performance presentation of research material from Flow Motion’s artists’ residency at Iniva in 2008-2009. Join artists Edward George and Anna Piva as they trace and explore the presence of the Promised Land trope in historical and contemporary accounts of migration, through the archive of songs, texts and images collected and created during the residency.

The songs have been collected from histories and cultures across the world, spanning a 400-year history of migration from the 1600s to the present day. They open doors to new narratives, forming unexpected connections, and making the journey to the Promised Land a fascinating and unpredictable one. The diverse sources for the material include the first documented African American slave songs, Bob Marley’s Exodus, Palestinian liberation songs, orchestral work by Jewish composer Wojciech Kilar and William Blake’s Jerusalem.

“‘Promised Lands’, we discovered, are haunted lands, haunted by the stories of other Promised Lands, haunted by the migrant, the displaced, the forcibly removed, the vanquished, and the past and place from which s/he is part and apart.” Flow Motion

There will be a live audiovisual performance presentation on 22 October where the artists reflect on their work to date and take part in a Q&A session.  This will then be followed by a live performance installation with new sound and visual elements on 12 November.

Flow Motion have also created an image, music and text-based website to which you are invited to send your comments, and are currently working towards a touring installation.