A Few Words From the Yakut Language | Performance by yourfriendkas
Line up: Leroy Berger, yourfriendkas

Opening times: Every day, 12:00 – 17:00

Performance by yourfriendkas: 17 September, 17:00 (open until 18:00)

Part of the airWG series 

A Few Words from the Yakut Language by Leroy Berger is an ongoing research project into Noord en Oost Tartarye, a book written by the Dutch statesman and Amsterdam’s mayor Nicolaes Witsen in the 17th century. This book is noted as the first time many indigenous languages from Inner Eurasia were recorded in written form, including Sakha (Yakut) — the language Leroy, as an indigenous Sakha, heard all around him as a child but was never taught. Now, as an immigrant living in the Netherlands, Leroy attempts to look at and examine the oddity that is the page containing Sakha and Dutch words, reflecting on his relationships with both languages, as well as looking into the work and legacy of Witsen.

The iteration of the project that was developed during the airWG residency consists of two parts: a personal interpretation of the source material through visual and audio experiments, and a collection of historical facts and biographies that attempts to look into the unlikely connection between the Netherlands and Republic of Sakha — two places more than 6000 kilometers away from each other. 

The project is supported by the Amarte Fonds.