“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”   

President Jimmy Carter---

the songs on loop whilst creating this 

In November 2020, my parents commemorated the 50th anniversary of the massacre that took place in their village, Besikdira. I assisted my father and his relatives in editing oral interviews from survivors. During this time I was also listening to Joy James explain how we sanitise how violent history was and as a result, we fail to learn function.

I created a wikipedia page for the Besikdira massacre that was rejected a few times on the grounds that there weren’t enough other sources to cite. <insert something about who decides what is history>. I eventually made a wikipedia page for Besikdira itself and this included a section on the massacre.

The idea of recording my parent’s history has been on my mind now more than ever. What memories we take when someone dies and what we want to leave behind. What portals we can use to record history. In Bilen, GABI means to speak and WASI is to listen.

This website cannot store or access any of your personal information at all. It is up to you to download and save the recordings.

Happy discovering.