With this question as a starting point, Abdelwahed explores frustrations about feeling fixed by the constraints of a pre-defined culture, place, identity, and the strategies employed to tackle them – be it by either simply defending the believed identity, or being deafened by loneliness after consuming endless art and ideas online.
Taking off from her personal memories as a teen living in a conservative Muslim country and the hopes and upheaval of the Arab Spring, Abdelwahed blends her own interpretations of Arabic popular music repertoire with a vision of a futuristic club scene and its global aspirations, along with excerpts from the Tunisian constitution and the essay “Murderous Identities” by Amin Maalouf.
Commissioned as part of the CTM Radio Lab, led by CTM Festival and Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Radio Art / Klangkunst in collaboration with Goethe-Institut, ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst, Ö1 Kunstradio, and The Wire magazine.