The European Project Sirius4all recently gathered in Berlin to celebrate the winners of the Sounding: EUROPE competition and pursue its mission of exploring European identity through new artistic and sound narratives. This multidisciplinary event included the active participation of Mapa das Ideias and the artists Carlos Noronha-Feio and Gulami Yesildal who contributed with reflections on how sound can express, transform and question the idea of Europe. 

Among the six musical projects honoured were innovative compositions that critically address the continent's memory, history and diversity.  

Marc Laurin Schimke with “Imaginary Time” proposed a sonification of the evolution of democratic support for the European Union between 1993 and 2024. It used musical frequencies associated with the population of the member states, distorted according to levels of Euroscepticism, revealing dissonances that reflect political and social tensions. 

Mani Shahhoseini with “Undying Lights” orally recreated the beginning of the 20th century: a Europe on the brink of transformation, marked by war, destruction and rebirth. The work is constructed as a sound narrative where ruin and hope coexist, evoking continuous cycles of ambition and conflict. 

Golsana Shenasaei with “The Sound of Crossing” approached Europe as a sensory and migratory experience. Mixing field recordings made in Berlin - sounds of trains, conversations and everyday urban life - with strings and percussion, the composer presented a piece that symbolically accompanies her journey, culminating in noise: a metaphor for the fragmentation and surprise of the European journey. 

The programme also included a moment of sharing with the project Sound Has Memory, at @schlesische27, and the presentation of eight student projects under the motto “How does Europe sound to you?”, with three-minute videos that illustrated personal and political visions of contemporary Europe. Through open discussions and exchanges of experiences, the art became a starting point for wider debates on identity, belonging and the European future. 

Watch the Berlin video HERE.

More information at: www.sirius4all.eu