February - March 2023 — Multi-Disciplinary

Basel-based violinist and performer Alicja Pilarczyk will undertake a research trip in Kenya from 7 February to 9 March 2023 in preparation for a project titled “Corpuscle”. The research and project focus on different cultural practices around loss and mourning.

The subject of the research is inspired by Alicja’s personal story. In her early childhood she lost her father in a car accident. The abruptness of the story has cast a shadow on her life and returned recently as a question about grief and ways of dealing with loss. In this project, she aims to find the threads that connect the living with the dead, a thread which she feels has become very faint in the western world.

Alicja will begin her research in Nairobi and Naivasha, before moving on to Mombasa and Kilifi on the coast. Through conversations and sharing of personal experiences and cultural practices, Alicja hopes to gain a deeper understanding of grief and different processes of saying goodbye.

BIOGRAPHY

Alicja Pilarczyk is a Polish violinist living in Basel, Switzerland. Her work traverses the boundaries between art disciplines: she creates her own projects, composes, choreographs and performs. She is the founding member of Concept Store Quartet and a member of Vischer Project, both based in Basel. As a chamber musician she collaborates with ensembles performing classical contemporary music and historical performances. Her personal projects include collaborations with visual artists such as Katherine Newton, Leiko Ikemura, composers such as Stylianos Dimou, Andreas Frank and Jorge Sanchez Chiong, and choreographers and dancers Clea Onori and Nieszka Bogusławska. She is a professor at the Academy of Art in Szczecin where she gives a class in Contemporary Music and Chamber Music. She is also a member of Basel Sinfonietta and Zurich Symphony Orchestra.