She who starts the song...: Sonic Practice and Gendered Transmission in Kosovo

Reframing the Gjon Mili Biennial

In 2025 the National Gallery of Kosovo, Pristina (NGK), hosted the 17th edition of the Gjon Mili Biennial, marking the event’s return after a five-year pause prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.1 Established in 2001, the exhibition was named after the Albanian American photographer Gjon Mili (1904–1984) and is known for its focus on developments in photography, a curatorial premise that was broadened for the 2025 edition.

Initially conceived as an annual exhibition, the event was re-envisioned as a biennial in 2012, a shift that followed Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 and coincided with broader efforts to strengthen the country’s cultural infrastructure. In the aftermath of the Kosovo War in 1998–9 and a subsequent ten-year UN-supported interim administration, the country’s cultural sector faced substantial challenges in restoring its institutions and practices. During this period, photographic documentation of the armed conflict – widely circulated through international news media – dominated the visual narratives emerging from the country. In the post-war period, the establishment and revitalisation of spaces for art fostered a critical discourse around representation and photography.

More than a decade later, the post-pandemic moment presented a similar opportunity to rethink the Biennial’s focus. As relationships with technology, images and sound shifted globally, artists in Kosovo became increasingly attentive to the ways images and sounds are produced and exchanged. Within this context, moving images gained renewed prominence alongside photography.

As a tribute to Mili’s legacy, and to his experiments with light and motion, the curators – co-authors of this article – proposed to expand the Biennial to include time-based media, encompassing photographic, filmic and sonic practices.2 Given that only one instalment of the Biennial had been curated by a woman over its two-decade history, the 2025 edition also marked a moment of institutional transition, foregrounding gender awareness and prompting a reassessment of long-standing imbalances in visibility and representation.3

Initial conversations among the curatorial team centred on a comparative analysis of previous editions of the Biennial and an examination of its role within the NGK’s broader exhibition histories, which revealed deeper structural patterns of marginalisation. We reckoned with the absences of women as subjects, and with the limited visibility of their artistic and curatorial practices within the institutional archives. Drawing on their research in time-based media and sonic practices and an exchange on tepsijanje with the artist Semâ Bekirović, co-curator Valentine Umansky introduced the concept of inherited matrilineal knowledge into these discussions. The emphasis on gendered transmission would emerge as a compelling curatorial foundation through which underrepresented narratives might be reactivated, animated by the literary scholar Christina Sharpe’s reflection on intergenerational memory: ‘I wanted to write about silences and terror and acts that hover over generations, over centuries. I began by writing about my mother and my grandmother’.4

The open call sought proposals that related to or expanded upon questions of matrilineal knowledge systems.5 Three artists who had produced bodies of work incorporating the practice of tepsijanje were invited to participate, while twenty more were selected for the ways their practices resonated with the Biennial’s conceptual framework. This approach allowed the exhibition to develop as a dialogue across artistic practices, geographies and generations.

The Biennial, which included some eighty works, built on ethnomusicological and acoustic research into tepsijanje, particularly the work of Franz Födermayr and Werner A. Deutsch, who examine the sonic and spatial properties of singing with the pan.6 Their studies were complemented by the writings of Jasmina Talam, which situate tepsijanje within gendered traditions of oral transmission and communal practice, and by Ramadan Sokoli and Pirro Miso, who document traditional musical instruments and related practices, including tepsijanje.7

These perspectives were further informed by theoretical approaches to voice, storytelling and inherited knowledge articulated by the Vietnamese filmmaker and moving-image theorist Trinh T. Minh-Ha, whose writing offers a framework for understanding sound and narration as forms of embodied, non-linear transmission.8 Scholarship on the influence of folkloric music on contemporary artistic practice, such as the work of Ilaha Guliyeva and Liubov Kopanitsa, underscores how ancestral knowledge may be transmitted through acoustic and performative forms.9

Much of our research was based on the lived experience of tepsija performers who collaborated with artists in the Biennial, as well as the artists themselves. While the work of all participants expanded our thinking on sound and knowledge transmission, this article focuses on the work of Lala Raščić, Semâ Bekirović and Astrit Ismaili, who have directly engaged with the practice of tepsijanje.10

The history, transmission and omission of tepsijanje

Tepsijanje is a Balkan musical form traditionally performed by women that combines vocal melodies with the rhythmic spinning of a copper pan called a tepsija (fig.1). Players (or singers) are usually seated in a circle formation, with one standing and the others sitting. The standing player is also the spinner, while the other participants act as a chorus, responding to the tepsija player. While tepsijanje predates the twentieth century, its documentation and historicisation emerged largely through ethnomusicological studies conducted during that period. To understand the origins of the practice, which dates back to the Ottoman period (fourteenth to early twentieth century), and its evolution as a gendered, matrilineally transmitted performance, scholars such as Födermayr and Deutsch emphasise the domestic context of the copper pan, often used in kitchens as platters to serve food.11 Sokoli and Miso highlight that, throughout the Balkans, melodic instruments were only available to men, which could explain why women resorted to an everyday object like a platter.12

Tepsijanje continues to be practised in domestic and communal settings in Albania, Macedonia, Serbia and Greece. Talam notes that it is still ‘present in some rural or urban areas’ of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where ‘singing with the pan was connected to usual, everyday activities as well as wedding ceremonies’.13 Talam continues, ‘folklore groups, and cultural artistic societies contribute to preserving this musical form. Singing with the pan is found as part of choreographies and as a solo performance’.14 In the modern and contemporary music sphere, Guliyeva and Kopanitsa note that ‘there is a significant revival of interest in the use of folklore motifs, reflecting the desire to preserve and revive cultural traditions’.14

Despite its longevity, tepsijanje remains largely absent from institutional collections and it is sparsely documented by cultural organisations. The Kosovo Museum of Ethnology, Pristina, which holds extensive artefacts related to rural life as well as gendered and oral traditions, does not hold dedicated records or sonic documentations of the practice.15 And while the Institute for Albanology, also in Pristina, holds publications that mention tespijanje, it does not have any related artefacts. As tepsijanje functions not only as a musical form but also as a practice of everyday social gathering and communal practice, its absence within national collections feels symptomatic, reflecting broader global cultural hierarchies through which women’s practices have often been rendered peripheral or insignificant.

What emerged from our research was the gap between what is performed and what is preserved, between what institutions have chosen or been able to archive, and what continues to live within bodies and domestic spaces.

Who is she? Finding the Biennial’s title

Centred on an unnamed female singer, the 2025 Biennial explored gendered traditions and their absence in material and visual culture, examining photography, moving images and sonic practices as powerful media of intergenerational narratives. Within a museological context, tepsijanje became a metaphor for inherited gestures – passed from mother to daughter – bridging generations across time.

The title of the 2025 Biennial directly references POČIMALJA – she who starts the song 2022, a multi-disciplinary project by the artist Lala Raščić.16 Počimalja is the Bosnian term for the woman who starts a song in traditional folk music, or leads other singers in harmony. The title of Raščić’s work invokes the idea of an anonymous woman, a matriarchal figure. In the context of the Biennial, the titular pronoun ‘she’ could represent the artists included, the curators initiating this dialogue, or members of the audience, opening up possibilities for participation. This unknown singer could be any one of us. She is both young and old, both passed on and alive, within us.

This archetype has been described by Trinh T. Minh-ha in her essay collection Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism (1989).17 The four-part study examines post-colonial processes of displacement – hybridisation, fragmented selves, multiple identities, marginal voices and languages of rupture – topics central to the Biennial. In ‘Grandma’s Story’, Trinh evokes the diseuse – ‘a Thought-Woman, Spider Woman, griotte, storytalker, fortune-teller’ – someone whose truths unfold over time and whose storytelling abilities are affirmed, directly connecting oral traditions, matrilineal heritage and art practices.18 She continues, ‘If you have the patience to listen, she will take delight in relating it to you. An entire history, an entire vision of the world, a lifetime story. Mother always has a mother’.19 The Biennial embodied these various facets, inviting audiences to engage with ancestral stories shared by the invited artists and their grandmothers before them.

Lala Raščić: A practice by women and for women

The work of the Bosnian artist Lala Raščić (born 1977) explores both tangible and immaterial culture through video, live performances, installation environments, objects and drawings. Her work encompasses contemporary and historical storytelling practices, complex systems of mediated knowledge production and folkloric forms and mythology.

Raščić’s multi-media installation POČIMALJA – she who starts the song comprises a multichannel audio-visual composition, calibrated sound, kinetic sculptures and computer-coordinated lighting, alongside works produced in traditional media such as drawing, screenprinting and verre églomisé.20 POČIMALJA was first exhibited in 2022, as part of Raščić’s solo exhibition The Laugh of the Medusa at Gallery Nova, Zagreb (fig.2). The work was expanded for an exhibition at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, in 2024, which coincided with a conference and performances by tepsija players, including Raščić, from Sarajevo and its surroundings (fig.3).21 The work was modified again in scale for its presentation at the Biennial.

POČIMALJA explores the acoustic properties of the tepsija as an idiophone, a musical instrument that produces sound through the vibration of its own material, rather than strings, membranes or external resonators. It also examines the acoustic phenomenon of voice echo as performers sing into the metallic pan, as observed by Födermayr and Deutsch in their study ‘Zur Akustik des “tepsijanje”’ (1977).22 Födermayr and Deutsch posit that, contrary to most performative musical practice, the sound emitted by the player who physically ‘sings into the pan’ reverberates towards the performer instead of being directed towards an audience, the way it would be in a classical concert formation, for example.23 Echoing their analysis, Raščić has explained that tepsijanje differs from other musical performances in that it is not only a practice by women, it is also a practice for women; a practice one performs for oneself, almost.24

POČIMALJA was one of the first works visitors experienced as they walked into the Biennial (fig.4). Drawing on her 2022 iteration of the project, Raščić created a kinetic sculpture that mimics the spinning motion of a tepsija, its resonance providing a soundscape for the exhibition space. Once visitors were drawn in by the spinning plate, they discovered two more components of the work: a series of silkscreen prints installed on a shelf on one gallery wall, and a large triptych of gold, silver, copper leaf and paint on glass, presented on the floor, leaning against an adjacent wall. The prints provided historical context to the project, reproducing illustrations and visual material related to tepsijanje from the guidebook Folk Traditions in Yugoslavia: Ten Tours (1970) by Leposava Zunic-Bas (fig.5). The three glass panels, which depicted a tepsija player from one of the prints, enlarged, fragmented and expanded this iconography into a reflective surface (fig.6).

Beyond evoking the acoustic qualities of tepsijanje – the spinning and tapping of the tepsija – Raščić’s work recreates the formal and aesthetic dimensions of the practice while reflecting on its socio-anthropological significance. Her kinetic sculpture mimics the rotating motion of the pan, creating an effect comparable to a tremolo – a trembling or oscillating sound, which was strongly perceptible in the exhibition space. This sonic effect is a compound of several phenomena: echo, modulation in volume, a change of frequency and trembling. While tremolos are not central to Western classical music, they are common in Gulf music traditions, used to sustain notes by performers of plucked instrument techniques (oud, tar and saz). Tremolo adds a shimmering effect to the music, contributing to its expressivity and its depth of tone. This demonstrates that women from the Balkans have not only created, but further developed a practice that allows them to – without the use of any instrument other than their voice and a metallic pan – hold a melody for longer periods of time.

The transgenerational and transmedial connection between different players is fundamental to the tepsijanje, as knowledge is transmitted through repeated gestures, listening and collective performance across generations. This mode of transmission is also reflected in Raščić’s work through sound, movement and visuals. The artist operates as a počimalja: one who initiates a work that involves a polyphony of voices from different participants, a point noted by the Zagreb-based curator and writer Ana Dević.25 POČIMALJA – she who starts the song is a reinterpretation of a feminine tradition through contemporary artistic language and methods.

Raščić’s series of prints illustrates a fundamental element of transmission: that practice makes perfect. There is no more effective way to learn tepsijanje than to repeat the practice with one’s mother. Across different images the hand gesture of the pan spinner appears several times, highlighting the degree of mastery embedded in tepsijanje, a practice often dismissed as ‘folkloric’. As mentioned in a talk delivered by the art historian and curator Pablo José Ramirez at Tate in 2020, ancestral knowledge systems are in fact advanced technologies. The practitioners apply conceptual knowledge and commit their bodies, repeating gestures until the skill is acquired.26 Raščić reminds us that despite being deemed ‘folkloric’, tepsijanje involves a series of elaborate gestures that can be emulated, disseminated and even subverted.

Sema Bekirović: Matrilineal transmission

Matrilineal exchanges are also traceable in the work of Semâ Bekirović (born 1977), whose work challenges conventional hierarchies and reveals invisible systems of power. The artist’s film Wonder Turner 2025, exhibited at the Biennial for the first time, is a collaboration between Bekirović and the women’s band Zenica that approaches the musical practice of tepsijanje as a convergence of oral history, material culture and visual illusion. Named after a thaumatrope, one of the earliest devices used to create the illusion of motion, the film shows the band members, Sanela Risidovic, Anela Haselji and Sajra Huskanovic, sitting in a landscape while one of them spins a pan that has been transformed into a so-called wonder turner (fig.7). The band played a central role in determining which patterns would adorn the pan – for which Bekirović drew inspiration from traditional Balkan rugs, incorporating symbols of good fortune and fertility – and which song would be sung.

Bekirović first became interested in the practice of singing with the pan while filming her first feature-film Once an Alien 2023 in Sarajevo and, following exchanges with Talam, came to view tepsijanje as a form of feminist resistance.27 Talam had noted that in communities in which conventional instruments were reserved for men, women often turned to household objects and utensils as a means of musical expression. Bekirović’s idea to film the exchange of ancestral knowledge was also inspired by previous collaborations with contemporary folkloric singers who sustain older musical traditions. As Talam observes, tepsijanje is now primarily preserved by folkloric musical groups.

Bekirović was particularly struck by the way younger generations who have learned to play the tepsija customise the pan in ways members of American marching bands might modify their instruments. This transmission through transformation inspired Bekirović to creatively merge tradition and contemporary practice. In Wonder Turner the tepsija is transformed by adding two slightly different images to each side (fig.8). When spun, the pan generates an optical illusion, ‘liberating’ the image from its stillness. These acts of animating objects serve as creative resistance to static forms. In the video, the women are filmed playing in nature. Through their gathering, there is a subtle evocation of the act of ‘rematriation’, an Indigenous-led, feminist framework focused on restoring, rather than just returning, sacred, cultural and material heritage – such as land, ancestral remains and artifacts – to their original stewards. By singing and occupying the land, the singers transform the act of making the work into a space of empowerment (fig.9).

Bekirović’s film was shown in the final section of the exhibition, on the upper floor of the gallery (fig.10). This chapter drew on the figure of the ‘spider woman’, invoking practices of weaving and transmission historically associated with women’s labour. In art history the spider woman often appears as a maternal figure, while in Greek mythology the figure is associated with Arachne, a weaver transformed into a spider and enduringly linked with the talent of interlacing threads. Bekirović’s film was exhibited alongside a quilted family portrait by Glorija Lizde and Stitch the Ruin 2024, a video by Željka Gita Blakšić that examines Yugoslavia’s legacy as a major textile producer and the central role of women in sustaining this industry.

Astrit Ismaili: Beyond the binary

For their film Flutura (Butterfly) 2025, the Kosovar performance artist Astrit Ismaili drew on elements of tepsijanje. Commissioned for the Biennial, the work includes scenes of the artist spinning a pan and singing, ‘I shine in the dark. I am what I am, and what I am, is what I want to become’. In Flutura, Ismaili reclaims Balkan oral histories and traditions as sites of imagination, challenging the presumed divide between ancestral knowledge systems and futurity. Traditional motifs such as the pan and expansive hip and arm extensions (figs.11–13) are activated within a queer performative framework as tools for liberated self-expression.

Ismaili’s queer, futurist vision reframes marginalised traditions as sophisticated technologies. In Flutura, they invite viewers to consider the pan’s amplification and distortion of women’s voices as a precursor to contemporary voice processors. By using the pan to modulate, echo or refract the voice, Ismaili foregrounds tepsijanje as an early form of sound alteration through material rather than digital means. The hip extensions recall kollanë, a traditional costume worn by married women in Kosovo’s Has region (fig.13).28 Featuring a triangular wooden platform mounted on a wide harness, the costume enables women to carry heavy loads over long distances. In Flutura, these extensions of the body become a symbol of the physical demands placed on women, while exaggerated arm extensions echo bridal attire – amplifying presence even as they restrict movement. In this way, Flutura reflects Guliyeva and Kopanitsa’s observation that contemporary artists and musicians often draw on folk traditions and legends to address present-day social and political concerns, giving inherited narratives new meanings.29

Ismaili’s wider practice explores the transformational potential of queer bodies and spaces. Drawing on fictional, historical and personal references, their performances or installations construct speculative worlds populated by alter egos, body extensions and wearable musical instruments. In their performance LYNX 2022, Ismaili contended with the body as a site of transformation, drawing on the figure of the endangered Balkan wildcat (fig.14). The performance examined violence, restriction and perseverance while imagining different forms of embodiment. In the closing scene, joined by their sister Blerta Ismaili, the artist spun a tepsija in the centre of the stage while the two performed a song written by their mother. Reflecting on LYNX and their commission for the Biennial, Ismaili explained that the work is a way to subvert gender norms, since the tepsija is only played by women.

The sound of Ismaili’s video work reverberated through the ground floor of the NGK, a symbol of the transient but potent sonic power that the Biennial foregrounded. Installed in a grey gallery space, it permeated the walls, creating an eerie sonic landscape that coloured visitors’ experience.

Conclusion

The works by Astrit Ismaili, Semâ Bekirović and Lala Raščić do more than interpret tepsijanje; they centre the voices of women and queer practitioners who transform generational silence into song, resonance and history. Raščić’s acoustic research, Bekirović’s visual illusion and Ismaili’s speculative mythmaking form a triadic structure – archive, animation and anticipation – each staging an encounter with a practice that is at once local and diasporic. Together, these works reframe tepsijanje as an adaptive system of sonic knowledge that is continuously reactivated and reimagined across generations and contexts.

Tepsijanje elicited a strong audience response at the National Gallery of Kosovo, particularly among children, many unfamiliar with the practice. Their curiosity and engagement underscore the potential of sound and music to reactivate intergenerational knowledge transmission and to cultivate new forms of cultural memory. Prior to its presentation at the Biennial, tepsijanje was, for a vast majority of people, primarily accessible through limited archival video materials circulating online (see fig.1).

The 2025 edition of the Gjon Mili Biennial, and by extension this article, sought to expand the field of Balkan-based sonic research by prompting renewed consideration of tepsijanje as both a musical practice and a living cultural form. Rather than approaching this tradition solely through preservation of instruments, notation and recorded songs, the Biennial foregrounded the importance of reinvention, situating tepsijanje within contemporary artistic contexts in Kosovo and the wider Balkans. In doing so, it framed transgenerational knowledge exchange as an active process through which inherited practices are sustained and mobilised towards broader forms of dialogue.