Audio installation on listening poles in public space. A reading from selected second hand books at specific locations.

CONTEXT
A sketch assignment for a site specific work for art-manifestation Dear Dynamism in the Utrecht Station Area. The area is in full development and change, to facilitate the function of the biggest railway hub of the Netherlands. Dear Dynamism was to take place in and around the station area and was to reflect the notion of dynamism.

PROPOSAL
My starting point was the book spot – one of these cabinets for sharing used books – at Central Station. Looking through the books people had left, I felt like the abandoned collective zeitgeist of the last decennia was standing next to each other on a shelf: women emancipation, management skills, macrame and pottery books, art history, christian literature, and each era’s popular novels. It was a strange experience, to be sitting in the middle of the busy station reading. I started looking up from the books, trying to find their protagonists in the passers by.

My proposal was to do just that: to read from novels and non-fiction, at preselected locations. I chose the locations for a certain degree of predictability. For example, at the meeting points there’s always someone waiting for someone, so it goes well with a text to do with hope. The spot were police on surveillance-shift is parking their cars, police-agents walk through the scenario with walkie talkies a lot.. which goes well with texts on power, crime stories, etc. The fun part was the pairings of text with location, or better said, of a text with the way the location is frequented by passers by.

TRANSLATION
“For adolescents puberty may resemble string dancing, every step may seem insecure and even scary. As a parent, you might occasionally wish that you could save your children from this experience. That is of course not possible, but you can be a kind of balancing stick for them. You are the designated person to help your children stay on the right path and become sensible adults. Of course that is easier said than done. Yet you do not have to feel inadequate if you are faced with such changes. You have access to and a source of wisdom that can provide reliable guidance for you and your child. The source of wisdom is God's word, the Bible.” Jonge mensen vragen p.3