Cana Bilir-Meier – Çevir Dünyayı, Tersine Dönsün  / Turn the World, Translate the World, Turn It Upside Down

Join us for an evening of live collective translation where poems by Semra Ertan are translated from Turkish into English and other languages. People are invited to bring their own poems and share it with an audience. The event will include songs by the Choir Rengin Kadın Korosu.

The title ‘Çevir Dünyayı, Tersine Dönsün’ / ‘Turn the World. Translate the World. Turn It Upside Down’ is a Turkish quote from a feminist song the choir Rengin Kadın Korosu will sing. ‘Çevir’ can mean ‘to turn’ or ‘to translate’. Translation is a creative process, the work behind it often remains invisible. The evening is an invitation to explore translation as a collective, performative practice. Rather than presenting a finished translation the process itself, in front of an audience, will be visible allowing multiple translations to coexist.

Starting from the poetry of Semra Ertan, the evening opens a space in which translation becomes a shared experience through language, memory, poetry and singing.

The poems by the writer, activist and migrant worker Semra Ertan are written mainly in Turkish and their translation into German was a collective process by her family and the publisher. Now this evening is a the starting point for translating the poems into English from Turkish by the Rengin Kadın Korosu and the audience.

In 2022, the choir, in collaboration with Zühal and Cana Bilir-Meier, organised an remembrance evening at Newington Green Meeting House, for Semra Ertan on the anniversary of her death. She took her life in protest against the racism she faced in Germany.

Now returning in 2026 for the Bavaria-UK Live Art Residency, Cana has reconnected with the choir during a stay in London. Her visits to their rehearsals have become for her a place of connection, exchange and joy. In collaboration with the choir she has organised an evening readings of the poetry of Semra Ertan, with live translation, enriched with collective singing. Participants are also invited to bring their own poems.

The Bavaria-UK Live Art Residency has been developed in partnership by Goethe-Institut London, the Office of the Free State of Bavaria in the United Kingdom, Live Art Development Agency (LADA), and HochX Theater und Live Art in Munich.