Katsia Kaya: Abiens Abi

»Abiens, abi«. The one who walks–go. A participle and an imperative. A state and a command. Someone says it to the one who walks–or the one who walks says it to themselves. The moment when letting go of a word is needed for it to become real.

 

The Song for You project began in 2020, when the world came to a standstill and the distances between people became both physical and political. I began recording songs on request–for those who stayed in Belarus, for those who had left, for those who didn’t know what to choose. First–a conversation. Then–a song. Latin as a language that belongs to no one and therefore belongs to everyone.

 

When I myself found myself in exile, this project became a way to maintain a connection–not an archive, but a living thread between those who are on the move and those who are waiting.

 

Abiens, abi is a performance featuring pre-recorded electronics and objects. It has a beginning and an end, but no fixed structure: decisions are made in the moment, based on what is already there. The voice exists here across several registers simultaneously–classical, pop, experimental, silence. The boundaries between genres are deliberately blurred, just as the boundary between ‘here’ and ‘there’, between absence and presence.

 

This is not a work about loss. It is about what it is like to be an eternal wanderer–and how, precisely in that space between state and command, a song comes into being.