__lullaby land

For the installation Lullaby Land I asked people from all over the world to sing a lullaby they remember from their childhood. I recorded these songs and merged them together into a sound collage. The sound piece is presented through a customized radio so it appears as if the songs - invisibly floating in the air like radio waves - are received by a world receiver. Between each lullaby you hear noises like a radio searching. Most of the songs will be incomprehensible, but the universal message of these songs surpasses language.

The second part of the installation consists of a painting of a sky at night with stars and a full moon: an image everyone knows from childhood. In reality everybody looks at the same sky with the same stars, but all from different points of view - topographical and cultural - so the same sky looks different to everyone. To stress this, I broke the painting in several parts and put them in line with each other. The cracks and tears between the parts reminded the artists of noise waves, analogous to sounds a radio makes when it's in between two radio stations. I like the idea that the collage is presented in a long sheared strip. People who walk along the painting scan the pieces just like a radio searcher.

Download press release here (AC Institute, New York City)