Sounds Beyond the Border

Sounds Beyond the Border is a video interview series and film project by ethnomusicologist Evrim Hikmet Öğüt that explores the migration experiences of displaced Syrian musicians in Turkey through music. The project highlights refugees’ talents and often-overlooked cultural contributions, while emphasizing the potential for coalition building and creating a more welcoming world through music.

As refugees navigate a new chapter of life in countries once foreign to them, they must balance transience and permanence, and, according to the artists of Sounds Beyond the Border, fostering a personal culture of coexistence becomes essential to mentally (and often physically) survive. Embodying this sort of balance on a daily basis can only be achieved through mutual understanding and patience between local communities and their refugee population. Music serves as a powerful medium for such interaction.

Sounds Beyond the Border is a video interview series that seeks to platform the complex experiences of Syrian refugees and their experiences with immigration through their music and art. Refugees and immigrants are frequently treated as burdens and outsiders by conservative and/or nationalist portions of asylum countries, regardless of their refugee status and high likelihood of living with deep trauma and grief. Thus, the series draws attention to refugees’ skills, diversity, and cultural richness, challenging common homogenizing and exclusionary perspectives and advocating for a global human-culture that is empathetic and kind.