#thecalaissessions

[sarahhickson]

The Calais Sessions album

A troupe of musicians with The Calais Sessions walking through the ‘Jungle’ including musicians living in the camp, Vanessa Lucas-Smith (cello) and members of the band Molotov Jukebox (Natalia Tena / accordion & Steve Apley / violin)

The Calais Sessions album is out!  Featuring tracks recorded in a makeshift studio in the ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais since September 2015, the album includes songs by musicians living in the camp, as well as collaborations with musicians from the UK, led by the cellist Vanessa Lucas-Smith, the creative talent behind The Calais Sessions. There’s raw Syrian folk song, an Ethiopian gospel lullaby, Sudanese drumming, infectious Afghan pop, a Bollywood-inspired collaboration, and poetic ‘mawwal’ improvisation.

This is the studio where many of the tracks were recorded - a fragile wooden shelter covered in blue tarpaulin, billowing noisily in the wind. 

I’m very proud to have been part of this extraordinary project, and to have  helped to share the music, the voices and the stories of some of the displaced people who ended up in the Calais ‘Jungle’, having fled their homes in Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and elsewhere. Their  music on this unique album reminds us all of our shared humanity and the need for our stories to be told and shared. 

Within the first week of sales The Calais Sessions album was the bestseller world music album on Bandcamp and no. 16 in their overall bestsellers and no. 7 in the itunes world music charts.

The album is available to buy through The Calais Sessions website.

Or from Bandcamp.

Please buy if you are able - as a digital album, or as a unique CD (the CD booklet includes some of my photos of The Calais Sessions taken over the past 8 months). Proceeds go to Citizens UK and donations to the refugee musicians on the album. 

Buying from PayPal (via The Calais Sessions website) means you are purchasing a physical CD. You will be prompted for your address. If you buy from Bandcamp you can purchase a digital or physical album and you can also name your price. iTunes has its own pricing scheme and takes a large cut. All proceeds are for charitable purposes - to the refugees themselves and to Citizens UK. We would prefer you to use PayPal or Bandcamp, so as much money can go to its rightful place.

The Calais Sessions project and the album release is gathering some great press interest around the world - here’s a lovely piece in the International New York Times, which includes the photograph shown above, taken in March 2016.

[sarahhickson]

Stories of Migration

I've been privileged to be part of The Migration Museum's latest project, "Call me by my name: Stories from Calais and beyond". This thoughtful and important exhibition explores the human stories of the Calais refugee camp through words, photographs, drawings, sculpture, video and installations. (The powerful work pictured above - “Wanderers” by Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen - is the first piece visitors encounter as they enter the gallery). 

I have heard reactions from visitors to the exhibition saying how much it has moved them, how they have seen aspects of the Calais camp that they have not seen in the media - images that have challenged their previously held views about the 'Jungle'.

There are many stories to be told - many of them complex and painful. But there are also stories of hope, love, resilience and above all, of humanity and community. With just a few days to go before the EU referendum, and amidst a terrifying build-up of misleading, fear-fuelling propaganda in the media in recent weeks, I feel more strongly than ever that we need to continue building communities, to acknowledge our shared histories, and seek out the things that connect us rather than what we think divides us. This exhibition couldn’t have come at a more critical time.

These are the eight images I have in the exhibition - all taken during visits to the ‘Jungle’ with The Calais Sessions between December 2015 and April 2016.

The simple wooden shelter The Calais Sessions use as a makeshift recording studio is normally a designated space for language lessons or other classes.  When it’s not being used for teaching, it’s a reading room, or simply a warm and dry space to sit, chat, and just hang out. The arrival of musicians and instruments in the ‘Jungle’ always attracts a crowd, and so the studio becomes an informal meeting place for many different people, languages and cultures.

In the shelter next to the Kabul Café in what used to be the heart of the Southern area of the camp before it was bulldozed earlier this year, traditional fabrics lined the walls and ceilings, and rugs covered the seating area around the edge of the room. Cigarette smoke hung in the air. Urged on by the clapping and drumming, young men got up to dance, whilst others joined in the singing. The faces of these young men, stranded in Calais, lit up. The strength of the human spirit and the need to connect shines through in the toughest of circumstances. 

As night falls in the Calais ‘Jungle’, the pounding generators kick into action - like a queue of trucks waiting to drive off. In this area of the camp bright white street lamps illuminated the water-logged road, casting milky reflections in the puddles.  Here the tents and flimsy tarpaulin shelters gave way to a string of bustling cafes, restaurants and small convenience stores run by refugees. Restaurants offered the comfort of home-cooked food, strong sweet tea and coffee and a warm place to hang out, smoke, play cards, or simply watch music videos on the TV. 

Abdullah’s woollen hat frames his face tightly, accentuating his dark eyes. The studio falls silent and he begins to sing. His tone is sweet and mellifluous; short and simple phrases become more elaborate as his poetic improvisation intensifies. Abdullah is a Kuwaiti Bedoon. The Bedoon have no passports, and no right to education, health care, housing or work, and are often marginalized and persecuted. You can read more about Abdullah in this previous blog post. 

The generosity with which Abdullah shared his music and stories, and the beauty of his singing was one of many memorable experiences on my first trip with The Calais Sessions back in December. 

Ismail is from Afghanistan. He’s an accomplished singer, and plays the dambora, a traditional, two-stringed, long-necked lute. Ismail tells us the harrowing story of why he fled Afghanistan with his wife and children. He rolls up his right sleeve to reveal burn scars, explaining that the Taliban plunged his arm into scalding water to prevent him from playing. He also shows us a gun-shot wound to his stomach. As he records in the makeshift studio, Ismail is completely immersed in the music – animated and exuberant one moment, reflective and absorbed the next. There’s more about Ismail and his recording session here. 

The modest church in the Jungle where a small community of Ethiopians and Eritreans regularly gathered was demolished less than 24 hours after we met a group of women there one Sunday morning in January 2016. The perimeter zone of the camp had already been systematically cleared by the French authorities, yet the church tent stood strong.  

After a couple of songs led by the UK group Get Gospel, the Pastor encouraged the women in the congregation to sing one of their traditional songs of praise. What followed was a beautiful exchange of music, prayers and worship.  Later the Ethiopian women taught the members of Get Gospel some of their songs, which they then recorded together in the makeshift studio. Read more about this story here. 

“Call me by my name: Stories from Calais and beyond” is at the Londonewcastle Project Space in Shoreditch until Thursday 22 June.  It’s free, and is open from 12 - 8pm each day (apart from this Wednesday when it closes early for a panel discussion at 6pm about people smuggling).

You can read earlier posts about my visits to Calais with The Calais Sessions:

The Calais Sessions in the ‘Jungle’ - Part II

The Calais Sessions - a space for sharing music in the ‘Jungle’ 

The Calais Sessions - at the Grande-Synthe camp in Dunkirk

[sarahhickson]

The Calais Sessions - at the Grande-Synthe camp in Dunkirk

Along the coast from Calais, just outside Dunkirk, there is a second refugee camp - the Grande-Synthe, where most of the refugees are Kurds from Iraq, Syria and Iran. Conditions are even more squalid than in the ‘Jungle’; clean water, toilets, wooden shelters and other basic amenities are in short supply. Unlike the camp in Calais, there is no organised distribution centre, and most of the refugees are living in lightweight tents, or under lengths of tarpaulin pinned to the ground with boulders. 

Strips of cardboard and corrugated iron have been laid across the mud in an attempt to create some navigable pathways, but the majority of this camp is completely waterlogged. Sanitation is pretty-much non-existent, dead rats lie in the mud, and infections inevitably spread fast. With many more families, women and young children living in the Grande-Synthe camp than in Calais, the situation is desperate.  

Stories abound of the police preventing people from bringing in supplies and donations, although we see a lot of volunteers in the camp, including a group of British Asians who we’d met at our hostel at breakfast that morning. They had raised money from their home town in Yorkshire to buy basic foodstuffs for refugees, and we help them carry large bags of rice to the communal kitchen in the centre of the camp.

The supply of wind-up lamps we brought to distribute amongst the families are gladly received. As we walk amidst the misery and oozing mud, we meet a mother and her five adult sons - Iraqi Kurds - who invite us into one of the few wooden structures in the camp. We spend an hour or so there, listening to their stories of courage, hope, despair and resilience. 

Ness from the Calais Sessions and two of the sons test out the wind-up lamp, charging it from a mobile phone. 

It doesn’t take long for the stories to turn into song. Benedict joins in on the viola, improvising around the traditional Iraqi Kurdish melody. 

After hearing their stories, and sharing their music, we ask if Roonak, the mother, would like to record her thoughts on her family’s plight, and the situation in the camp. Her moving message to people in the UK and Europe has been transcribed and translated here. You can also see a short film made by The Calais Sessions of our time at the Grande-Synthe camp.  

Since we visited, news has been announced that MSF (Médicin Sans Frontières) has permission to build a new camp for refugees at the Grande-Synthe, equipped with sanitation, showers, toilets and more robust tents.

[sarahhickson]

Singing in the Ethiopian & Eritrean Church in the Calais Jungle

This modest church in the Calais ‘Jungle’ where a small community of Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees regularly gathered was demolished last week - less than 24 hours after I took these photos. 

I’m here on my second visit to the Jungle with The Calais Sessions - a group of UK-based musicians and music-industry professionals who make regular trips to the refugee camps in Northern France to connect with musicians there and to facilitate an informal space for sharing and recording music. On this visit we were privileged to have four wonderful singers from the UK-based choir Get Gospel with us. 

There aren’t too many people up and about on Sunday morning. It’s been raining hard for several days now, and the leaden sky weighs heavily. Deep puddles stretch across the main track through the camp, and my boots sink deeply into the slippery mud.

The perimeter zone of the Jungle that has been systematically cleared by the authorities in the last couple of weeks ago bears the scars of hasty demolition; discarded clothes, blankets, plastic sheeting, insulating material, the odd shoe, mattresses, are strewn across the muddy ground where tents and fragile shelters once stood.

Encircled by neat wooden structures, the church is a small island of security, warmth and friendship - creating a sense of order and belonging amidst the general uncertainty, squalor and desolation. The simple wooden cross nailed to the entrance stands proudly against the brooding February clouds. 

Smiling broadly, and shaking each of us by the hand, the Presbyterian Pastor ushers us into the tent that serves as a place of worship. It’s relatively warm and dry - with a wooden floor and an electricity supply.  Some of the congregation have begun to set out rows of chairs, ready for the morning service, which we are invited to join.

Jules from Get Gospel explains to the Pastor that they would love to take part in the service and exchange songs with the congregation. The Pastor seems delighted and agrees enthusiastically, especially when Jules suggests that they would like to begin with “Amazing Grace”. After a couple of songs led by Get Gospel, the Pastor encourages the Ethiopian and Eritrean women in the congregation to sing one of their own traditional songs of praise. What follows is a beautiful exchange of songs, prayers and worship between Get Gospel and the Ethiopian and Eritrean women. The Pastor, who has been singing energetically throughout the service, then delivers some wise and comforting words on the subject of compassion and makes a closing prayer. 

The women’s songs are so moving and we would love to enable their voices to be heard more widely, So at the end of the service, after we’ve all been offered coffee, Jules tentatively asks the women if they would like to record a couple of their songs for the Calais Sessions. You can imagine how thrilled everyone is when they agree, not only to record, but to teach their songs to Get Gospel so that they can perform together. 

We’re all about to walk the short distance to Jungle Books, where the Calais Sessions’ makeshift studio has been set up. I feel the Pastor hesitate for a moment as we leave the church. I ask him what’s wrong, and he points to a viscous cloud of white smoke rising above the trees a short distance away near the road. It’s tear gas. 

There are police sirens blaring, and people are running across the wasteland next to the church to see what’s going on. 

This is the first time I’ve witnessed tear gas in the Jungle, and although we’re not that close, the acrid smoke soon hits the back of my throat. The atmosphere has shifted rapidly from one of relative calm to something altogether more edgy and tense. 

We wait for things to calm down before hurrying back to Jungle Books. 

Meanwhile, Damien and Ali, the Calais Sessions’ two sound engineers have been working wonders to turn the Jungle Books’ classroom into a fully functioning recording studio. 

During the week there are language lessons and other classes held here. At other times it’s simply a warm and dry space to sit, chat, or just hang out. The music sessions attract a fair bit of attention and there are always people listening, or waiting to take their turn at the microphone. The ongoing challenge is how to encourage people not to wander in an and out during a take. Surprisingly perhaps, the low background chug of the generator just outside the classroom door is less of a problem - Damien somehow manages to remove all trace of it from the final recordings.

Here are a few pictures of the Ethiopian and Eritrean women in the studio preparing to record. 

To get a sneak preview of the recording, and to read more about The Calais Sessions, click here. 

[sarahhickson]

The Calais Sessions - Ismail’s story

Ismail is from Afghanistan. He’s a singer, and plays the dambora, a two-stringed, long-necked lute. Attached to the index finger of his right hand is a small metal hook with which he strums the strings, maintaining a regular percussive beat by drumming the body of the instrument at the same time. A bracelet of metal rings adds further rhythm and texture. 

Ismail’s expressions and body language change rapidly when he’s performing – he is animated and laughing one moment, intense and subdued the next.

He also plays Benedict’s viola, and the darbuka (drum). 

Amin joins in on darbuka. 

Damien, the Calais Sessions’ recording engineer takes a break, whilst Ismail talks to us and a couple of journalists. 

He tells us the harrowing story of why he had to flee Afghanistan with his wife and children. He rolls up his sleeve to reveal burn scars and explains that the Taliban plunged his right arm into scalding water to prevent him from playing. He also shows us a gun-shot wound in his stomach. 

He lights a cigarette and walks away, looking into the distance.

Amidst the mud, the cold, the lack of privacy, the uncertainty, after the traumatic experiences many of the refugees have experienced to get to Europe, playing music and singing provides some respite; it brings a brief moment of normality, a little relief from anxiety. It’s a means of bringing people together and communicating with a shared language, it helps people tell stories, to express their feelings, to reconnect with home. The joy of the moment is visible on the musicians’ faces and in their body language as they sing and play. Emotions run high and the energy is powerful. It’s a point of connection that needs no additional explanation or justification.

You can watch a short video The Calais Sessions recorded of Ismail playing here. 

[sarahhickson]

The Calais Sessions - a space for sharing music in the ‘Jungle’

Ali, the sound engineer for the Calais Sessions throws her energy into setting up the PA system, plugging in microphones, and balancing sound for a variety of musicians and instruments in one of the Jungle Books classrooms.

Ismael, pictured here playing the dambura (long-necked lute) later records a brilliant set of solo numbers in the studio next door. See more in the next post. 

[sarahhickson]

The Calais Sessions in the ‘Jungle’ - part II

Vanessa Lucas-Smith (Ness) is the driving force behind The Calais Sessions. She’s also the cellist in the renowned Allegri String Quartet. Ness is pictured here with one of the refugees she met on a previous visit to the Jungle.   Benedict and Gus were the other two London-based musicians for The Calais Sessions’ recent visit in December. We also had the expertise of Damien, a recording engineer, Ali, a sound engineer and Sarah who was filming.

Arriving at the Eurotunnel terminus in Calais, the high-security fences around the port are only too visible, as are the police vans parked at regular intervals along the roads close to the tunnel entrance. 

Given that it’s the Saturday before Christmas, Calais town-centre seems remarkably quiet and drab, with many of the shops and cafes closed. In the hotel car park we sort and re-load the two vehicles with our cargo of sound equipment, speakers, cables, microphones, laptops, video cameras, not to mention a generator and a large bag full of wind-up, rechargeable torches to distribute at the camp.

The conditions in the Jungle are as grim and as challenging as I had expected. The inadequate shelters, makeshift tents, woefully poor sanitation, lack of privacy, limited means of preparing food and staying warm, make each day an unimaginable struggle for the men, women and children who have made long, arduous and dangerous journeys from their home countries to escape persecution, conflict or poverty. Tarpaulins flap in the wind, and flimsy tents collapse into the grey mud. Clothes are spread out to dry amongst the brambles and rubbish. Some dilapidated caravans house families with children.

The Eritrean & Ethiopian Orthodox church constructed out of plastic sheeting and corrugated plastic over a basic wood frame is a prominent landmark in the camp. It has two large blue gates at the entrance, and a simple wooden cross on the roof. By the entrance two bedraggled Christmas trees enhanced with a few strips of aluminium foil are buffeted by the wind.

On the other side of the church is Jungle Books, a volunteer-run library, information and learning centre.

The books are organised alphabetically and by category - everything from children’s books to contemporary and classic novels, engineering text books to English grammar primers. Pinned to the walls are posters and flow charts outlining the essential elements of the asylum process. 

These rooms are welcoming and warm; insulated and heated off-grid with energy produced from a wind turbine on the roof. Thanks to the generosity of Jungle Books, two of their classrooms become our hub for the weekend.

From just behind Jungle Books, a refugee watches the lorries thunder along the main road at the perimeter of the camp towards the Eurotunnel. Whilst another man sits quietly, playing the Arabic flute. 

The drums we’ve brought with us are an obvious calling card, and help spread the word that we’re offering a space to meet other musicians, to play and record music.

Ness’s trumpet attracts attention and is a fun way to break the ice. Everyone wants to have a go – included Rowan one of the volunteers who runs Jungle Books. Ness’s cello also gets passed around.

We wander further into the camp and arrive at the Dome – Good Chance’s arts space from where they run an inspiring programme of theatre, arts and music projects, providing a friendly place to hang out, join in arts-based activities or workshops, share stories and watch performances. 

A little girl of about 6 years old comes to talk to me. She speaks excellent English and she asks me shyly if I know where she can find a guitar, as she really wants to play. Ironically I’ve just seen one, lying amongst the rubble - but it’s snapped in two...