My partner Elise and I started in 2018 the Transformatorium as a nomadic, co-creative laboratory, dedicated to cultivating empathy through open-hearted listening and expression.

We travelled all around Europe, offering workshops, private sessions, circles, aiming to raise awareness, sensitivity, and intention so that we are able to connect to ourselves and one another.

While living in Australia I got the chance to be involved with one of the most generous projects I’ve ever come across. This non-for-profit vegetarian restaurant was founded by Shanaka Fernando in 2000. It offers food to everyone, gives shelter and support to refugees, and gets its resources solely from the donations people give for their meal. It is an incredibly warm and welcoming place to land when arriving to Melbourne, and a great way to meet some good people.

I met Lucas when he, like me, was busking in the streets of Melbourne. He played Gypsy Jazz guitar with a lot of discipline and virtuosity. He joined my band Chalouche for a few gigs as a guest performer before leaving Australia.
When I met him again in Berlin three years later he had turned into a human synthesizer and sampler. He’s now composing and performing with the help of elaborate machinery he created and wears on his own body. It is full of transmitters and receptors electronically converting movements into some of the most innovative sounds I’ve heard. He is still exploring the possibility of this new technology but he’s improving fast. I believe he’s creating one of the major audio-visual performance styles of the future.

João was not only one of the most enthusiastic and invested hosts of my house concerts, but also changed my whole vision of how music can be done. His project, Amber Foil, is a global form of art, including a whole graphic, musical, cinematic and narrative universe, displayed through an extensive variety of media such as CD’s, posters, films, internet, photography. He has an extensive knowledge of how of social networks work. He uses it more to connect and share with other artists than to strictly promote his own project. He realized that even through social networking, there is far more to gain when you give attention than when you ask for it.

I started my house concert tour in Europe with this soulful musician. His way to live and to share his music, his incredible voice, left a deep print in me. Both his voice and music are reflecting the diversity of the places he has traveled (East Africa, Brazil, New Orleans…) with a strong reference to black musical culture.

What makes Yujoy such a special musician and a constant source of inspiration for me lies both in the simplicity and generosity of his approach. Yujoy plays with his heart, and gives an energy of love which inevitably opens everyone’s heart around him.