One Song

One Song celebrates the power of songs we carry in our hearts and memories, songs that connect us with our heritage. Created by artist Kadir Karababa and commissioned by Counterpoints Arts, the work was displayed at the Museum of the Home in London in 2023 and will be on tour in 2024.

Kadir says:

“Inspired by my own family story of migration from Eastern Turkey to London, I wanted to make a work about how songs are carried across borders and yet firmly rooted in the place they were first sung.”

“As a child, I remember hearing my grandmother repeat a line from a song over and over again ‘I am on a long and narrow road’. At the time, I was irritated that she only seemed to remember this one line.”

“Years later I realised the significance of the song to her: by singing it, she was transported to the country and home she had left behind. This is the essence of One Song.”

In a series of sessions between April and June 2022 led by Kadir and Ellen Muriel, participating women living in Hackney shared personal stories with each other and contemplated the question, “which one song takes you back to the place you first called home?”

Songs were performed and a selection were filmed in their original languages with English subtitles – allowing the viewer to experience their themes of land, love, and loss.

The work is also collected on the One Song archive website.