The artist and musician Ruhail Qaisar has recently completed a new artwork as part of an artist residency program in the Province of Styria. Qaisar’s work deals with the “uncanny swarms of the human subconscious” and uses “sonic gestures” from his homeland of Ladakh, a region in the northern Indian Himalayas that is characterized by deep religiosity as well as climate change and mass tourism. Namkhay Rtsima is an “anti-linguistic Trauerspiel” that invokes phantasmagorias of processions and obsession. It draws on the power that lies in the primal physicality of mourning songs. “Soiled by time, demolished by winds and measured in silence and wails. Ruination.”

The composition process of Namkhay Rtsima was accompanied by Ukrainian composer, violinist, music producer and educator Katarina Gryvul, who also contributed violin sounds and voice. Gryvul had already been a guest at the ORF musikprotokoll in 2022. At that time, she moved the audience with her piece Zemlya, which is based on recordings of her breath during a panic attack after the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression.