JUTNA: Music Across Borders

JUTNA studio album is a music experiment born on Hydra Island, bringing together musicians meeting for the first time to record an album in a single place and moment. JUTNA becomes a temporary home for voices, songs, and stories carried from six different countries. Released by Music in Exile and produced with Mnemosyne Projects, the album draws on Hydra Island’s layered history and the atmospheric setting of the Old Carpet Factory, where it was recorded. These surroundings invite transnational artists to co‑create new sonic languages of belonging and awaken personal and collective memory through sound. The accompanying short film by Mackenzie Randall captures the intimate, behind‑the‑scenes process that shaped the project.

In 2024, Music in Exile delivered a landmark artistic residency at the Old Carpet Factory on Hydra. Over ten days, musicians from Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso came together to create an environment for cross-cultural collaboration. The program explored how music, storytelling, and shared creative practice can foster social cohesion and a sense of collective humanity in an increasingly fragmented world.

Developed by Music in Exile in partnership with Mnemosyne Projects, the residency examined the role of the arts in strengthening global connections and cultivating dialogue across borders. Bringing together artists with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences, the initiative highlighted the universal power of music to bridge differences and connect communities.

Music in Exile, Old Carpet Factory, and Mnemosyne Projects work together contributing a distinct yet complementary dimension to the project. Old Carpet Factory serves as the site of hospitality, a unique space where artists from different cultures come into close encounters and genuine creative exchange. Music in Exile represents the mobility and lived experience of artists whose lives and practices are shaped by migration, displacement, and transnational movement. Mnemosyne Projects provides the memory and political framing, offering a curatorial and intellectual structure that situates these artistic collaborations within broader global narratives of migration, identity, and cultural memory.