Ayse Balko

In the bases of being a moral Refugee. Being a refugee is not being a victim. As a refugee, you can empower yourself by believing your power, inner gentle strength and uniting with positive attitude organisations and people. You can find your way out from undesired circumstances. The road for empowerment is from accepting the situation you are in, not in a victimised way but in a clear headed, focus minded, looking for solutions and willing to carry on with always positive attitude to reach the destination. Even though being a refugee is a catastrophic life changing/transforming state/experience, you have to have right attitude to get over it and put your life into its rail. Refugees are generally victimised. The power to change anything comes within and let no fear and victimisation enter there.  Believe you can make a difference in your life. First have a clear look at where you are and then starting moving towards where you want to be without any hesitation . Remem...

For all I know is, how we move, how we walk, how we breathe, how we stand is who we are... Who we are is a collection of personal interpretations of experiences we collect into our physical and non-physical-selves. Our physical movements create three dimensional patterns in the ether,air. As I know, how we move is who we are,  it means we create patterns of who we are in that particular moment of space and time, because we are also in continuous change and growth.   Our environment and outside forces have influences and effects on our emotions & thoughts in that specific frame of time. One of the most effective of these forces is music.  Music travels in the ether in the form of sound waves, as we all know. This is the root of <a href="http://aysegulthornett.com/2014/01/start-of-new-commissioned-piece-journey-of-belonging/" title="New Project, Commissioned by Journeys Festival, ArtReach: “Journey of UnBelonging”">"Journey of Unbelonging...

It was such a successful night. Thanks to everybody who came and joined us. What a beautiful feeling to share a work which has been in a development for a while. It has worth every second of all those intense moments and thoughts. We have created two paintings during the performance. Space was full and we had to turn down some people.  This project is a beginning of many others. It is going to be a platform for artists to share pure and honest experiences with audiences. ---------------- I am so excited and a bit nervous. I know how strong the images created during live performance. So strong, intense, sharp... To be honest unique...  My anciety is not for the quality of the work, but we are going public... Everything we do, Joao, Mina and I is depending on our true honest emotional sharing and polylouge, creating new language during our non-verbal ex-change of dialogue. Here is ArtReach's invitation to powerful live performance art project: "ArtReac...

Studio Session 1: with Mina Salama and Joao Simoe We started the session one hour late around 2.30 pm at The Creative Arts Development Space (CADS) in Sheffield on 9/01/10, Thursday. We can only actually, physically start the session around 4.30. It sounds easy to do, Mina is playing live music with his oud and ney flute, I will be dancing on the board and painting with my body movements, my feet are my brush. What we do is not the actualisation of structure, we have to feel and connect with each other and one hundred percent mindfully being together is what enables me to create the paintings and enables Mina to compose his music. There were long discussions on the story and journey and how to blend them together to make our individually personal stories visible to the audience. Different experiences in a structured but also free form style come together and become a separate personality in itself. It all resolved when I went for a half an hour walk as the director-curator ...

A Journey of UnBelonging combines live action painting, music composition and video projection and featuring three artists, two from refugee backgrounds. After a series of (so many) discussions, story/experience sharing, story boarding sessions, personal investigations & three development sessions in different warehouses in Sheffield, Mina Mikhail Salama (Egyptian composer/instrumentalist), Aysegul Balkose (Turkish/British performance & visual artist) and Joao Paulo Simoes (Portuguese independent director & film maker) . Conceptualised, produced and performed by Aysegul Balkose. It has been commissioned by <a href="www.journeysfestival.com">Journeys Festival</a>, ArtReach which is supported by Arts Council. The piece is opening a journey of a refugee to the audience.  The piece premièred to an audience of 100 at the Curve theatre. Around 40% of the audience were refugees or asylum seekers and had never step foot in a theatre before. The atmosphere...

"A Journey of UnBelonging" is a series of paintings, one short film with music composition created during 3 development sessions in different ware houses in Sheffield by refugee and immigrant artists in the purpose of expressing their own journeys of "UnBelonging". The expression of the conceptual inner journey of not-belonging is reflected on a large board in the form of painting through movements of the performance artist (Ayse) based on tai chi, acrobatics and dance. Ayse action paints with her feet by her dramatic movements directly influenced by Mina Salama's live improvised music. The piece is exploring and reflecting the dramatic change of the inner perception of refugee's journey towards finding sanctuary. But is there ever a sanctuary? The piece brings together three dimensions of artistic expression within the theme of cultural displacement - featuring Aysegul Balkose and Mina Mikhail Salama". The project is produced by Aysegul Balkos...

Maurício de Almeida Gomes, grandfather of Indipendent film maker, director, Joao Paulo Simoe.   When Joao made a  conscious decision to translate the work of his grandfather's into English, he would't have guess that he would be entering a Historical context of what is perhaps the most influential Angolan poetry of its time.                                          "A lonely, visionary flare sent towards the stars…Into the uncertain, troubled future…Communicating to all those who were to think of themselves as alone and unheard that it is possible......That conscience and courage can make us who we want to be…" I recommend you to read the http://mauriciodealmeidagomes.blogspot.co.uk blog that is dedicated to this great refugee poet by his grandson, Joao Simoe. http://mauriciodealmeidagomes.blogspot.co.uk   If my homeland is coloured... my ho...

It is a project which brings together three dimensions of artistic expression within the theme of cultural displacement . I am proud to announce new commissioned collaborative performance + art  piece for the ArtReach, Contemporary Arts and Development Agency, as a development project. Premier performance will be held at mid February. Journey of Un-Belonging is a collaborative and challenging performance project between Egyptian composer ,musician , ney flute and oud player Mina Mihail  Salama (Refugee),  Turkish originated Turkish/British performer, visual artist and photographer Aysegul Thornett and significant theme member Angolian originated Portuguese director and independent film maker Joao Paulo Simoes. We are aiming to create more awareness on the un-settled , un-belonging journey of refugees through real life experience and story of Mina Salama. The expression of the conceptual inner journey of not-belonging  will be reflected on a l...

Following the fantastic response in 2013 from our audiences, the local refugee community and arts organisations alike, Journeys Festival sought to produce a brand new piece of work for the East Midlands.  Artists were encouraged to explore new ideas, opportunities, and to develop partnerships or collaborations that would positively contribute towards their future work. From a strong pool of proposals a commissioning panel selected  A Journey of UnBelonging .  A Journey of UnBelonging:   A Journeys Festival commission  The piece was then developed and performed again at Journeys Festival 2014, and the  short moving image above was  screened in the ArtReach Nanoplex. In 2015 as part of Journeys Extra, Aysegul and Mina were reunited to perform A Journey of Unbelonging once more as part of a showcase at the  Platforma Conference in Leiceste r.  A Journey of UnBelonging: the Moving Image The pi...