Mour­ning Cot­ton Flowers

​Mour­ning Cot­ton Flowers is an X‑Berg Poem that stems from the idea of the dis­trict being a home for many who have been forced to lea­ve their count­ries, for the home­l­ess who look for shel­ter in the streets, and for the addicts who scream through their bodies that the­re is some­thing wrong in the socie­ty. Today the streets of the neigh­bor­hood may dis­turb some peo­p­le, espe­ci­al­ly the locals fil­led with some sort of nost­al­gia, but the once indus­tri­al dis­trict with so many sto­ries of working class, resis­tance, and coun­ter­cul­tu­re still inspi­res many, like the need­le that evol­ved into sewing machi­nes, gra­mo­pho­nes, and syringes. 

Fin­ding refu­ge in a Kern­ge­häu­se – a for­mer Kin­der­näh­ma­schi­nen­fa­brik on Cuvry­stra­ße, İpek Sey­alıoğ­lu dived both into the cul­tu­ral diver­si­ty and the per­so­nal sto­ries in the neigh­bor­hood upon her arri­val to Ber­lin, which gave her the impul­se to do a theat­re performance.

In her pre­vious solo, she had alre­a­dy star­ted explo­ring live wri­ting and per­for­mance on stage, but this time as not only X‑Berg but Ber­lin is the city of sounds, she was wil­ling to expe­ri­ment with sound. Alex­an­der Mark­v­art, an avant-gar­de sound artist and a per­for­mer, agreed to col­la­bo­ra­te with her. Now in Mour­ning Cot­ton Flowers An X‑Berg Poem, they are thre­a­ding tog­e­ther an expe­ri­men­tal con­tem­po­ra­ry poem through live wri­ting, live sound, and phy­si­cal per­for­mance, brin­ging some of the so-cal­led era­sed memo­ries back to whe­re they belong.