Ben Osborn (Oxford, UK) is a writer, songwriter, composer and sound designer, now based in Berlin. Coming from a poetic folk song tradition, his work draws also from electronica and classical music to create a space in which highly personal and deeply political stories can be told. Ben’s debut album “Letters from the Border” was released in 2019 on Nonostar Records. The album received widespread critical acclaim, praised for “incredible orchestration, incredible words, a touch of Leonard Cohen and a touch of Björk” (BBC). It was listed in the top 10 albums of 2019 by CurveBall Radio and its title track was nominated for an International Songwriting Award. A collection of his lyrics and poems, “murmeln um schiffland”, was released in 2017 by Moot Press.

At the Künstlerdorf, Ben Osborn created an album of new songs and pieces responding to the emotional reality of living through global crises. The pieces work through emotions of grief, hope and love, aiming to find a simultaneous political and emotional expression within the folk song form. For each song or piece, a corresponding „lecture“ is created: a text that uses the music as a jumping-off point to explore the political possibility within the emotion the piece expresses. These lectures are developed into visual and video pieces in collaboration with the artist Andrea Huyoff. During this time, Ben is presenting these new songs and pieces in concerts in Europe and Argentina.