VIEW HERE: http://konversation.us/border_convos
[includes tracklist and video list]

A year ago we started our “BORNTORAGE” mixtape series, and today we share our 5th installment featuring the transcendent work of  8ulentina and Foozool. Click the link above to drag and zoom your way around an audiovisual  experience.

8ulentina, Turkish, and Foozool, Iranian-Armenian, are both products of a diasporic digital generation who combined forces after connecting through MAS#ALLAH, a digital platform and collective of contemporary Middle Eastern artists. This mixtape and collaborative visual experience was a way to share stories about identity and healing inter-generational trauma. “We talked a lot about the violence of Turkish nationalism and its constant denial of the Armenian genocide and how that delusion continues violence to this day,” said 8ulentina. The two coming together on this project was a way to dissolve borders and find similarities and differences in the way they experience culture out of the context of their homelands.

Foozool highlights the gravity of such a collaboration even on a small scale, “I also think its beautiful that we’ve coincidentally come together at such a crucial time for our communities and histories, as 2015 marks the centennial, 100 years, after the Armenian genocide; however, denial of such genocide from the Turkish government still continues until today.” Though the two don’t really consider themselves “just ‘Turkish’ or ‘Armenian’,” the importance of finding healing of personal and ancestral histories through collaboration is a thread woven through this mixtape.

The sounds we hear pull from Istanbul, Canada, Armenia, Syria, and our fav America-based crew Future Brown. Foozool compiles visuals from Youtube to showcase rich cultural media on Konversation to provide a space to interact without the jarringly negative Youtube comments that are often already too familiar to those living the immigrant experience. For younger generations of diaspora, collaborations and conversations are a way for us to heal as individuals from our violent histories while thriving through sharing knowledge. You can peep the tracklist and the videolist on the audio/visual and get your comparative study on! Look out for more projects by 8ULENTINA and foozool in the future!

View the Audio/Visual Mixtape here

Follow 8ULENTINA
Follow foozool

For audio only:
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