Songs of Travel

An animated graphic novel exploring the unique stories of five migrants seeking new beginnings in Europe. Together, these stories paint a mosaic of themes such as our hopes, dreams, and identities and the things we treasure most.

The aim of Songs of Travel is to bring the personal stories of migrants to a wider audience and paint a vivid picture of the topic of migration. The narratives are tied together by the experiences of the Syrian artist Jack Gutmann, who co-developed the award-winning game "Path Out" with the game’s developer, Causa Creations.

These tales are set to the backdrop of a specially curated soundtrack by Northern Irish composer Elaine Agnew. The use of this music is a vital element of the project, which will be presented in the four partnering festivals in Ireland (Cellissimo), Sweden (Fairplay Chamber music), Norway (Valdres Sommersymfoni) in 2024, and in the Netherlands (Piano Biennale) in 2025.

Follow the narratives of:

• Light, a non-binary Syrian refugee who arrives in Vienna after years of hardship and war in Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
• Vân, the daughter of a Vietnamese contract worker who grew up in East-Germany and who must deal with the duality of being Vietnamese-German.
• Michele, the son of Francesco Cicora, an Italian coal miner who died in the great mining disaster of Marcinelle 1956 in Belgium.
• Hasan, who came to Austria at the age of 1, when his mother moved there from Istanbul, Turkey.
• Olya, a Ukrainian lawyer and a refugee who has had to flee twice: first when she left her home of Donetsk in 2014 and fled to Kyiv, and then when she fled from Ukraine once war erupted in 2022.