Our first encounter took place in Switzerland in August 2022 during the Sailing Stones team and artists tour in Switzerland, a project supported by Pro Helvetia Cairo, SüdKulturFonds and Say Hi! network. Several cultural practitioners came together during this tour, including the three founding organizations of Transmitting Stones (Sailing Stones (TN), El Moutanakil (ALG), Sable & Chaux (CH)).
This meeting was a continuation of a broader music network spanning years among these three countries, such as the Transmitting Voices project, an alliance between Sable & Chaux and El Moutanakil, and Moving Stones, an alliance between Sailing Stones and Marcel Bieri (a member of Sable & Chaux).
In these collaborations, similar visions and ambitions converged towards a common goal, resulting in concrete connections in various cross-country projects.
The direct human contact and discussions around this shared vision among Reda Mehenni (El Moutanakil), Rim Harrabi (Sailing Stones), and Sandro Bernasconi (Sable & Chaux) created a fruitful dynamic that brought them closer, transitioning from virtual interactions to physical meetings.
From this synergy, the Transmitting Stones project was born, originally initiated with the Thoulathy program founded by All Around Culture (Art Rue x MitOst) and supported by the European Union. Through this program, the three project leaders (Rim, Reda, and Sandro) met multiple times (in Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria, Switzerland) to refine their collaboration and launch the platform in the three countries with the support of the Art Rue and MitOst teams.
During this program, we decided that the platform project would develop organically by testing each of our objectives' axes and gradually expanding our team.
This approach allows our collaboration and project implementation process to evolve in a healthy and organic manner, always horizontally, refining our working methods based on encountered challenges and the urgent needs in the three local scenes and the global context.
