Where no bell rings

Sound installation (6 speakers and woolen carpet) + printed booklet

Premiered at the Soundproof room, Amare, Den Haag, Netherlands, June 2023

We have been collecting folk 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, we gathered field recordings from our archive 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.

all troubles gnats and weaknesses that needlessly take people's lives, I send them to distant fields, where chickens don't fly, where the roosters don't sing, where no bell rings, today I'm getting rid of them. I drain them with a spoon, I tear them out with scissors, I cut them out with a knife, here you mustn't show yourself, here you mustn't dwell. when I did not know you, I did not speak you away, now I know you and speak you away, from the yellow bones, from the red blood, and the blue veins so the entire being would be without all pain, all infirmity, all fear, all troubles. go where dogs don't bark, where chickens don't sing, where enemy winds dance.

all troubles gnats and weaknesses that needlessly take people's lives, I send them to distant fields, where chickens don't fly, where the roosters don't sing, where no bell rings, today I'm getting rid of them. I drain them with a spoon, I tear them out with scissors, I cut them out with a knife, here you mustn't show yourself, here you mustn't dwell. when I did not know you, I did not speak you away, now I know you and speak you away, from the yellow bones, from the red blood, and the blue veins so the entire being would be without all pain, all infirmity, all fear, all troubles. go where dogs don't bark, where chickens don't sing, where enemy winds dance.