The Hutto Project aims to create space for children of displaced populations to share their voices. In collaboration with The Red Cross and The American Academy in Berlin, The Hutto Project team established a music and education performance program within an a refugee camp for a group of children between the ages of 3-14, coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Moldova, and Palestine. Our classroom was in operation from February to July 2016. During this time, we rehearsed 3 times a week, hosted 12 guest artist workshops, recorded our work at Funkhaus studios, and held public events at the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung and ZK/U. The Hutto Project was developed in residence at The Watermill Center in January 2016 and brought to fruition in residence at The American Academy in Berlin. Our work was made possible by the generous donations of people around the world through a crowdfunding campaign, as well as sponsorship from Daimler and initial support from The Watermill Center. For more information, visit our website: http://www.thehuttoproject.com
Khesrau Behroz is a writer and conceptual artist. He was born in Kabul (Afghanistan), socialized around the world, and is currently living in Berlin (Germany). He studied at Free University in Berlin as well as New York University. As an artist, he created the project “When Kennedy Died” that deals with the impact of U.S. drone strikes on his own personal life, and “Wish You Were Here” that deals with the impact of drones strikes on other people’s lives. His artistic endeavors were featured in Zeit, Vogue, Deutschlandradio, Tagesspiegel, and other publications. He was awarded a literature work stipend by the Berlin Senate and he was artist-in-residence at the Watermill Center. Behroz is currently writing his first novel that is based on the true story of his parents and grounded in the fantastical beauty of fiction. www.khesraubehroz.com
Brune Charvin has traveled and worked as a photographer and videographer throughout four continents, building her own sense of what ‘culture’ and ‘international’ means today. From two short documentaries in Senegal, to working with Robert Wilson in New York as part of his documentation team, Brune explores music and movement as an international language.
Brune lived in Indonesia from 2013 to 2015, where she worked on Athirah, the new feature directed by Riri Riza, and conducted research on her new short documentary Rasa, an intimate journey through dance and self-discovery. Recently, she was a documentarian for the Hutto Project. www.charvinbrune.com
Kate Eberstadt is a multidisciplinary artist and founder & music director of The Hutto Project. Eberstadt graduated from Columbia University with a degree in English Literature. She has worked as a performer, composer, writer, and director, with artistic residencies at The American Academy in Berlin and The Watermill Center. In various costumes and personas, she has performed with artists such as Robert Wilson, Lady Gaga, Christopher Knowles, Kembra Pfahler, and Ilse Pfeifer, on stages including the VMAs, Art Basel Miami, on VH1, and various works in New York, Washington DC, and Berlin. She has written for The Berlin Journal and Slant News, and her work has appeared on NPR, Mic.com, Der Tagesspiegel, and other publications. Kate is currently writing an album with her sister, composer/musician Izzi Eberstadt, as well as a solo music project, both of which will be released in 2017. www.kateeberstadt.com
Filmmaker Brune Charvin, writer Khesrau Behroz, and composer Kate Eberstadt will come together for postproduction on The Hutto Project, a music and performance education program that took place in an emergency refugee camp in Berlin during 2016.
First, they will review all of the footage that Brune shot within the music classroom. From this, they will create a library of footage, images, and documents from The Hutto Project, organized by theme.
From this library, they will begin two creative collaborations.
(1) A film project, directed by Brune, soundtracked by Kate
(2) A writing / media project, directed by Khesrau:
“Out of the thousands of pictures and hours of video material we choose the one that we personally connect with because they remind us of our own past, our own moments. We then write short pieces of (abstract) texts to accompany those images and videos. At the end, we will have interwoven synapses of the lives of the kids we have worked with our very own memories.”