ABOUT
The World We Live In is a non-profit community arts organisation in Groningen, the Netherlands. We believe in the power of intentional art-making and creative participation to empower communities by strengthening empathy, sparking discourse, and encouraging solidarity between people. The World We Live In is dedicated to developing and facilitating programmes that connect and inspire the community through shared artistic experiences. We do this by creating open platforms for artists and the public to freely participate in creative expressions of their world, in the form of arts festivals, events, and community workshops.
WHO ARE WE?
The World We Live In is managed by three multidisciplinary, international musicians based in the city of Groningen — Melisa Delgado, Setareh Nafisi, and Rosie Taekema — who were brought together through a shared urge to use music and other artistic practices to encourage and facilitate expression, connection, and solidarity between individuals in society.
Melisa Delgado
Melisa is originally from Argentina. Her multifaceted career includes working as a freelance viola player and improviser, creating, organising and facilitating for workshops, concerts and education, both in the Netherlands and abroad.
As a live performer and studio musician, she has participated in a wide range of projects including original electronic compositions (Setareh Nafisi, Nicholas Thayer, Thijs de Vlieger), live improvised music with viola and loops (Paradigm Festival), cross-genre multidisciplinary productions (Farbenfroh and Unison amongst others), ancient music (Violetta Club Ensemble), and orchestra playing (Sinfonietta de Lausanne, Orquesta Sinfónica de la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo). She plays with the Noordpool Orkest and curates the Living Room Concerto. Melisa has been active in several community-art projects, participating, developing and leading workshops for Grenzeloze Muziek, CityProms-Embrace and De Vrolijkheid in the Netherlands, and AmaZonArt in Brazil.
She holds a Bachelor of Music in Viola Performance from Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (Argentina), a Concert de Diplôme at the Haute Ecole de Musique (Switzerland), international exchange student at the Conservatoire Régional de Versailles (France), and a Master in New Audiences and Innovative Practice from the Prince Claus Conservatory (The Netherlands).
Setareh Nafisi
Setareh’s work oscillates between music, poetry, movement and space. She is an artist driven by the approach of creating ‘music in context’.
Her work includes composition, performance as a pianist and improviser, artistic direction, educational research and co-founder of non-profit organisation The World We Live In, an arts and society driven association.
Her work is about humans, human relationships and an interaction with their inner and outer world. Stylistically, her music is most often described as ‘beyond borders’, and draws together all the threads of her musical journey, incorporating influences from classical, electronics, avant-garde and Eastern disciplines.
Setareh was born in Iran and is now based in the Netherlands. She earned a Bachelor degree as a concert pianist from Tehran Art University and a second Bachelor from the Prins Claus Conservatoire (Groningen, NL), this time incorporating education, improvisation and composition. She then took a Pre-Master in composition for film at Amsterdam Conservatoire (CvA), before completing a Master’s research in New Audiences and Innovative Practice at Prins Claus Conservatory (The Netherlands) with focus on composition/New music in interdisciplinary projects.
She is now a research assistant at Prins Claus Conservatorium, where she also runs her own Module ‘Moving Sounds’.
Rosie Taekema
Rosie grew up in the South-East of England before moving to Groningen in 2012. She is a freelancer who works a varied portfolio career combining several areas of her skills and interests.
As a cellist, Rosie works as a performer and studio musician for a range of different music genres and contexts, including classical, jazz, pop, rock and metal, improvisation, and more. Recent and/or ongoing live projects include working with the Frisian-language music and theatre project "Tiidgenoaten" (2021), performing solo improvisational music within the cross-arts ShELFISH production "ONE" (2021), and the music and dance collaboration project AFAR (2019-2020). Recorded albums she is featured on include Hiske Oosterwijk's "Wurden" (2021), Masha Maria’s "Homes" (2016), and Thomas Zwijsen's “Divide and Unite” (2016). She also teaches private cello lessons to beginner adults.
Rosie also works as a freelance copy-editor and proofreader for (mainly academic) English-language texts, does occasional voice-over work, and is involved in research related to the function of the arts in society. She completed a Bachelor of Classical Music at the Prince Claus Conservatorium in 2018 and a Master in Arts, Policy and Cultural Entrepreneurship at the University of Groningen in 2020.
OUR STORY
In Autumn 2015, the founders of The World We Live In came together as a small group of music students* at the Prins Claus Conservatorium in Groningen to talk about our thoughts and feelings regarding the current world news, our struggles to process it all, and our urge to do something with a positive impact on society. From these discussions blossomed the idea of creating an arts event that would act as an open space for artists of all backgrounds to express their personal reactions to current global issues and share this with each other and their community. At this festival, we would bring together not only artists and musicians from all different disciplines and backgrounds, but also local artists with their wider community, international students with the locals, asylum seekers with their new neighbours, and more. The diverse artistic platform could, thus, also act as a meeting place for people in our community to have the opportunity to learn more about each other, break down existing prejudices, and develop a sense of solidarity across social divides, at the same time as feeling the intrinsic effects of music and art participation on an individual level. In 2016, the first festival was brought to fruition, and its success and impact exceeded all of our expectations!
Since 2016, The World We Live In project has continued and matured into an organisation of professionals, and in December 2020, it was registered as an official non-profit foundation. Over the years, our reach has expanded to involve new collaborations with artists and organisations both locally and globally, and we have also developed more socially-engaged arts activities beyond the festival, such as community workshops. Up until now, we have produced four festivals and a few workshop projects, with the last project taking place in the summer of 2022. The next project is currently under construction!
* Rosie Taekema, Setareh Nafisi, Melisa Delgado, Maria Kritsotaki, Anahita Malakooti, and Makram Aboul Hosn.