In February 2020, Wonderfeel was approached by the Unda Foundation to give its own implementation to the Flag of Compassion. The idea to ask a composer to write a new work was born and shortly afterwards nipped in the bud by Corona. But at the same time as the virus was spreading, sharing compassion became more urgent. It led Wonderfeel to scale up the idea and share it with festivals in the Netherlands and internationally under the flag Festivals for Compassion. Together, the participating festivals form a symbolic compassion relay with in 2020-2021 the performance and online sharing of Calliope Tsoupaki’s Thin Air and in 2022 Maxim’s drop after drop.
Festivals for Compassion took its inspiration from the Flag of Compassion, a conceptual piece by the Dutch artist Rini Hurkmans. The work consists of ‘the Flag’ and a manifesto, held at the Unda Foundation. The Flag is a means to express the universal human feeling of compassion, independent of political, religious, or cultural ends. It is a flag for everybody, and can be used by anyone. The Flag of Compassion (actual or virtual) can accompany Tsoupaki’s composition from festival to festival.