maḳām / newsletter no.1

Dear friends,

After years of make-shift working conditions, I’ve found, at last, not only a dedicated place to work, but also room to gather and host—at Cranachstraße 62. This new space for readings, exhibitions, and gatherings will be called maḳām.

مقام (maḳām), for me, is drawn from music and mysticism. The musical spheres it evokes are vast and multilayered, touching both the secular and the sacred. It not only denotes a unique improvisatory process in Turkish classical music, but is also reflected in traditions of Arabic, Persian, Sephardic Jewish, and Armenian liturgical music, as well as in the ēchos of Byzantine chant—neatly tying itself to صدا (ṣadā), which means “echo,” and which in Turkish is also seda.

But makam can also mean a station, a presence, or a place of work. I hope it resonates and becomes, for all of us, a site for gatherings, for listening, for showing, for sharing—a soft and strong beginning.

The first group exhibition and intimate opening will take place on:
May 16, 6–9pm
at Cranachstraße 62 in Friedenau.

I would be very happy to see you there.

Warmly,
Seda

I am also excited to invite you to two live performances, together with Andreas Reihse:

May 1 • 3–10 PM
Modellprojekt Empowerment — Fest im Dragonerareal
Live performance by Seda Mimaroğlu & Andreas Reihse (5–6 PM)
Dragonerareal, Mehringdamm, Berlin.

May 6 • 7–9 PM
Erinnerung an Eva Mamlok
Lecture by Alexandra Weltz-Rombach, with a live performance by Seda Mimaroğlu & Andreas Reihse
Bibliothek Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Straße der Pariser Kommune 8A, 10243 Berlin.

If you had subscribed to any of my newsletters or mailing lists in the past, you might have been automatically added to the makam mailing list. I hope you wish to stay.

This will be the only newsletter I send from now on. It may remain sporadic, but it will not be more than monthly.

In any case, the links to subscribe or unsubscribe should be below. Thank you for your interest.