Eliyah Mesayer: Illiyeen presents

On the occasion of Eliyah Mesayer’s participation in Art Hub Residency fall 2023, she curated a performancerogram titled Illiyeen presents with performances by invited artists who interpreted and contributed to the spirit and the notion of the nation Illiyeen.

Eliyah Mesayer’s state for the stateless is not rooted in a specific place or geographic site, but in human encounters and alchemical connections.

The event, which took place on 18 January 2024, was the first of many to finally one day construct an Illiyeen Album of soundscapes.

Following artists performed (in the order mentioned/pictured): Angel Wei, Zahna Siham Benamor, CCsquele and Young Smash OTP.

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ABOUT ELIYAH MESAYER
Artist Eliyah Mesayer (b.1987) graduated from the Jutland Art Academy in 2020. While working within several expressions, Eliyah Mesayer’s practice is primarily expressed through an alchemical tradition, especially that found in the treatises of Jabir ibn Hayyan (721-815), (Geber) – The Father of Chemistry. Inspired by Gebers multitude of processes for investigating and exposing the principles of it’s subjects, one outlet is Mesayer’s alchemical works on paper, where she create visual interferences by combining chemical processes with light. However, her form of alchemy isn’t limited to these formats, but also extends itself into poetry, installation, and performative works.

A focal point for all of these is the fictional state Illiyeen, a state for the stateless, which both engages her own heritage, but also seeks a form of alchemical change by artistically balancing itself on the dynamic threshold between reality and fiction as well as fact and imagination. Illiyeen is a non-specific geographical location. It is a state of nowhere and a nation of everywhere. It is a state of being. Illiyeen is a conceptual manifestation emanating from poems, installations, songs, compositions, performances, and exhibitions, it is about history, past and present. A liminal state between the political and the poetics.

ABOUT ANGEL WEI
Angel Wei is the moniker of composer, producer and visual artist Joakim Wei Bernild.
Moving through quiet electronic compositions and dreamlike pop songs, Angel tells stories of
grief and escapism, drawing on references from pop culture, mythology and internet
landscapes.

ABOUT ZAHNA SIHAM BENAMOR
Accompanied by North African samples, ambient compositions, and auditory loops such as scenic backdrop, poetry and performance artist Zahna Siham Benamor takes the audience through a journey of events that have shaped her life as a Dane with Algerian roots intertwined into larger themes such as feminism and anti-racism, anti-colonialism, life, sorrow, and joy.

A reused poetic motif in Benamor’s lyrics is, for example, the desert flower, the false Jericho rose, a flower that dries out and “dies” and then blooms again. The flower is found in North Africa and is used both as a symbol of her own personal struggle to find her way back to life after a series traumatic events – and as a symbol of the tradition of using poetry as resistance in her country of origin, Algeria – here the oral tradition has become historic used to effectively and systematically avoid categorization of the rule of the French colonial power.

At the end of February 2024, poet Zahna Siham Benamor and painter Apolonia Sokol will create something new joint work entitled School of Beauty, School of Culture for their first major duo exhibition at O-Overgaden. In connection with that exhibition, you will be able to buy Benamor’s LP La fausse rose de Jericho which will contain some of the tracks performed at Art Hub Copenhagen on 18 January 2024.

ABOUT ADAM CCsquele Nielsen
Adam “CCsquele” Nielsen is an active musician/performer in the musique scene of Copenhagen
for the past 13 years, inspecting various so-called genres and instruments. By virtue of
misanthropique rituals & self-scrutiny, CCsquele chronicles the proper unpleasantry called life.

ABOUT JAY NICHOLAS BØRRESEN
Jay Nicholas Børresen is also known under the stage name Young Smash OTP, fires up under tongue 808 based beats and songs that vary in mood but with strong notes of Trap and RnB.