The house-resembling wooden shape refers to one particular abandoned store, as it has been seen in the inaccessible UN-controlled bufferzone in between the divided city of Lefkoşa / Lefkosia.

The work 'Folly' is an interpretation of this architectonic construction, according to a scale of approximately 1:8.
Previous to the exhibition, snippets of sounds from the public field were recorded in the surroundings on both sides of the border and buffer zone. The found sounds were edited to a composition, played back in the wooden mock-up and re-recorded.
As the mock-up is scaled down, the sounds changed pace - as well.

The result is a soundscape, played at normal speed, yet with the assumed characteristics of the interior space acoustics of the inaccessible store.
The act of imposing new sounds from the public domain in a representation of a building, of which its original is withdrawn from public life, because of conflict, could touch the idea of an attempt to reanimate its former embedment in social life by the recollective power of recorded sounds.

The abandoned building is left in no-man’s-land, shifted from an operative shop within a community, to a dysfunctional, virtually decorative object.


'Folly' is in the collection of Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht

Lefkosia / Lefkoşa (Nicosia), February 2015
wooden mock-up 60 x 120 x 80 cm, table, mp3 player and headphones, stereo soundtrack 8'11".
'Folly' was part of 'Stimulating Synapse' exhibited at first at EMAA Lefkoşa, curated by Branko Franceschi.

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Folly
EMAA, Lefkosia. (2015)
(click here for video)