Our Fragmentary Survival | Elaheh Khaki

This project by Elaheh Khaki responds musically to a call from the past — If I Rise, a politically charged poem by Iranian poet Hamid Mosaddegh (1940–1998). The poem was taken up by student movements in pre-revolutionary Iran, in the years before 1979, and later re-emerged through performances by Iranian musicians such as Habib Mohebian, known for his work in Persian pop and rock, and Sattar, known for his work in Persian pop. Elaheh believes the poem’s call to rise and act still resonates today, though within a new context:

I explore how the same words, heard in a new time and genre, take on layered meanings. One of the poem’s key features is its shifting tone — from hope to despair, from the dream of solidarity to silence. Its sectional form lets me break it into fragments and reorder them. Each carries meaning on its own, but also responds to what comes before and after. I improvised piano phrases shaped by these emotional turns; they also act as connective tissue, holding the poem’s fragments together.

I am not a trained vocalist, but I use voice as texture, as trace, as a resonating body. My voice stands in for the fragile, fractured voice of a society in long-term survival. This is not a closed project but a living process — a fluctuating dialogue between hope and despair, from past to present. I hope this EP becomes a space for reflecting on, and practicing, solidarity by reversing the sound of silence.

When to listen? First broadcast: Wednesday, 10 September 7:00 – 7:30 PM

Where?

106.5 FM (Gatineau) ∣ www.radiohull.ca