About my project
The Čang
For thousands of years, the Čang accompanied poetry, storytelling, rituals, and court music across West Asia. One of the earliest known depiction of the instrument appears on a seal from Čoḡā Mīš in present-day Iran (see the drawing), dating 3.400 BCE.
Over the centuries, the Čang became a recurring presence in poetry, paintings, and historical miniatures, where it was associated with love, longing, devotion, and the art of storytelling. By the seventeenth century, however, its playing tradition gradually disappeared. The instrument remained visible in images and literature, but its voice fell silent.
My artistic research
In 2020, I discovered the Čang, an ancient West Asian angular harp that is largely unknown in Europe. Encouraged by my friend and colleague Markus Wach, I began researching its history and acquired two instruments: one by Feridun Obul (Istanbul) and another by Ardival Harps in Scotland.
Over time, my interest moved beyond the instrument itself. I wanted to bring together my musical background, my studies in anthropology and Islamic studies, and my German-Persian biography. Rather than reconstructing a lost tradition, I became interested in how traditions can be relocated, transformed, and continued in new contexts. Growing up between Germany and Iran, I often felt that I belonged fully to neither place. The harp became my home. In the Čang, I encountered an instrument marked by interruption, displacement, and the search for continuity. Although our stories are different, I felt a sense of kinship with an instrument that, too, had to find its place again.
There are no recordings, living performance tradition, or written instructions for how to play the Čang today. Rather than reconstructing the past, I approach the instrument through listening, improvisation, and artistic research. Tradition, for me, is a relationship that is continually renewed.
During my research, I came across a poem by the Persian poet Hatef Esfahani. Its verses became the guiding principle of this project, inviting me to simply sit beside the Čang, to listen, and to discover what might emerge from the silence between us:
What if, one night, you invited me into your secret place,
where you sit beside me, and I sit beside you.
به حریم خلوت خود شبی چه شود نهفته بخوانیم
به کنار من بنشینی و به کنار خود بنشانیم