Blindsight

"I think listening is important in life, that you listen to each other, really listen. And to me, strangely enough, film has been a medium that allows listening. So sound is always important in my work, sometimes more important than the image." Manon de Boer, 2022.

Blindsight is a sound installation based on a performance (Ghost Party 1- 2022) and a film (Ghost Party 2 - 2022) that Manon de Boer realised together with choreographer Latifa Laâbissi in the Van Wassenhove House near Ghent, a Brutalist villa designed by the architect Juliaan Lampens. In the film, de Boer and Laâbissi lend their voices to artists and writers who inspired them, like Marguerite Duras, Serge Daney, Casey and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Together with sound designer Laszlo Umbreit, the dialogues and soundscape were then translated into a spatial and acoustic installation, originally for the Dhondt-Dhaenens Museum in Deurle.

Visitors are invited to take a seat in a cinema chair, not to watch but to listen. The sound comes from speakers that are encased in concrete vases. They match the vases in the film and symbolise the people de Boer and Laâbissi are giving their voices to.

In both Ghost Party and Blindsight, Manon de Boer explores the concept of the voice: having a voice, giving a voice, but also listening to your inner voice.