HEEM

MATERIALS Wood, plexiglass, audio-modules
DURATION Variable (56 x 4 minutes)
DIMENSIONS 3,2 m, 1,6 m, 2,0 m
DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION Sjef Mols

The Installation Heem is an increasing audio archive implanted in a wooden tree house. The tree house is placed on a festival area. The title of the installation is referring to the Germanic notion of haima (close to home). The Dutch notion heem is not substantive, it relies and gets meaning in interaction with others.

The installation offers space for only one visitor at a time. Besides having the possibility to withdraw from busy life of the festival and enjoy the view, there is also the possibility to listen to an archive of audio fragments, where people share sensations and descriptions of what they connect to with home. Those sounds are stored in archive cabinets in the treehouse and can be activated through pressing buttons. Actually they are amplified sound modules, that were pre-recorded. The basic archive was build with respect to diversity. The visitor has the possibility to leave an own sound-memory by recording it in the tree house on a module. Which sound is connected to the feeling of home for you?

Through the messages of the visitors the archive extended during the festival. Through this installation we investigated how the safe feeling of home can be reconstructed and experienced in the middle of a busy festival and together with unknowns.