Jannah, Jannah (Paradise, Paradise) is a two-part podcast project that combines stories gathered from the displaced Syrian communities in Istanbul, Turkey, with music and illustration. Revolving around the Syrians’ concept of Jannah, not the one promised by religions, but the one the Syrian communities would like to live on earth, the project aims to tap into the memories and dreams of the Syrian communities in Turkey whose life has become ever more precarious due to the Turkish government’s aggressive approaches to the Syrian refugees and the violent rise of anti-Syrian racism in the country at the moment.
The project starts with two project partners in Turkey, Mohammad, a Journalist and storyteller, and Adib, an electronic music artist, who talked to and gathered stories from the Syrian Communities by asking: what is a paradise to you, have you tried to live it, do you believe it exists, and Is it all that goes against the bad situations, among others. A community event took place between January and February 2024 along with private conversations with participants who have shared their own stories of living in Turkey. By interweaving these fragmented stories from the communities with music by Adib and illustration by Sara, we aimed to co-tell a story about Jannah (paradise) for Syrians.
This project builds on a multi-year project titled Syrian Humming Project through which Suk-Jun Kim (Jun) has collaborated with Mohammad, Adib, and Sarah since 2019. For this project, they teamed up with Qisetna, a London-based organisation whose main objective is to preserve the cultural and oral heritage of communities affected by conflict and displacement as its objective.
Interviews with the artists
