14 channel, spatialised audio installation, 2020 & 2023
Sound Design by Ceola Tunstall-Behrens & Antal van Nie
I listen to the telephone ring,
waiting for him to pick up the phone.
When did we last speak,
I am not sure.
I loved our conversation where he started singing,
telling me about his summer holidays as a child.
He has so many stories
that I will
never hear.
As he gets older his life
becomes smaller.
It becomes thinner.
It becomes
fixed.
He talks of things close to him.
Of the things he can
see
and feel.
The same daily things.
If I capture him
before time has ended,
before I have
no control over
it, then
I have things I can keep.
I want to know it all.
I want to
hold it all,
in his voice.
Connection to depot/archeological items
One of the core questions at the heart of this work is memory and preservation. Why do we preserve? Why do we hold on to things? What for? Whom for?
When looking through the Dordrechts Museum collection the ceramic pots from the archaeological Depot resonated with these questions in the same way. These pots have been found in archaeological excavations in Dordrecht and have been restored, preserved and kept. They are held onto in the collection as objects and memories, to tell us about lives lived long ago.
Connection to theme of exhibition
This work links to the theme of the exhibition as it touches upon the innate human need for connection, relating to, and with, one another and remembering. We carry around experiences and memories of people in every moment - our bodies are made up of all that came before. How we hold those memories internally and externally, and the need we feel to do so, is an intriguing human habit.