Unforeseen: Improvising Life and Music draws on memories, field recordings, and conversations with Polish, Ukrainian, and Roma migrants living in Scotland.

As we shared experiences of migration and life in Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 90s, unexpected commonalities emerged: buried memories, smells, sounds, maternal voices and lullabies. Swallows flying low before summer rain; concrete balconies; the smell of pavements after a storm; hazy summer skies. Birdsong and migration became intertwined with questions of belonging, identity, and home.

The work explores how we navigate uncertainty within larger social, political, and ecological systems, and how migrants build new forms of belonging.

Improvisation lies at the heart of both the music and this enquiry: responding to unforeseen circumstances, adapting to change, and finding a way between memory, instinct, and possibility through cello, electronics, field recordings, and Ableton Live. Accompnied by narrative and film by Anna Leszczynska.

Co-Directed by Fiona Mackinnon