where no bell rings (2023)

sound installation (6 speakers and woolen carpet) in Soundproof room, Amare, Den Haag, NL

The sound installation is based on the ethnographic research of Lucia Nimcova and David Petras in the Carpathian Mountains. Since 2020, we have been collecting songs and stories of survival from older women living in remote locations on the border zone of Slovakia, Ukraine, and Romania. Some of them still practice witchcraft and healing rituals rooted in pre-christian traditions as part of their traditional way of life.

To create a listening situation in a soundproof room, I gathered field recordings inspired by descriptions of places and sounds in magic spells, interviews, and local mythology, including our own speculations. Most of them refer to the interspaces and transition zones to a mythical, unknown world, the entrance to which is often mediated by playing musical instruments or whispering repetitive chants. The stories are reinterpreted by listening to and recording the environmental sounds of the areas where the tradition still survives.