Screenshot from the VR experience If Walls Could talk shown at Het Nieuwe Instituut during Temporary House of Home exhibition, 2021
A multimedia installation by (A)WAKE reflecting on a new social fabric woven throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
While many expected an increase in collectivity and solidarity alongside the shared pain of restriction and isolation, differences flourished online. The internet could have been a democratic symphony of a multitude of voices, but instead it became an insular platform for 'the individual'.
Many social justice movements also migrated to the internet, yet it is common for organisations such as Instagram and Facebook to regulate what is shared, how, and to whom. This networked dialogue sometimes results in advice, education and support, but it can also engender collective guilt or outrage. While efforts are made to improve it, performative posturing has become a new social currency in itself.Instalation If Walls Could talk shown at Het Nieuwe Instituut during Temporary House of Home exhibition, picture taken by Aad Hoogendoorn, 2021
Zawija
Inspired by the saying ‘the walls are closing in', this installation uses virtual reality to confront the visitor with this new social fabric. In the VR experience visitors are first introduced to the confronting and polarising social fabric. As a next step, they get to know about the zawiya (loosely translated as ‘corner’), a Maghrebi and West African term for a place to gather and solve conflicts within the community. Originally associated with religion, it now appears in many functions from the spiritual and the educational to the social and the political. Here, it is a space in which to reflect on – and try to resolve – today's tense and socially alienating climate.Instalation If Walls Could talk shown at Het Nieuwe Instituut during Temporary House of Home exhibition,video by Ringailė Demšytė, 2021
(A)WAKE
From our home in Rotterdam club space MONO, (A)WAKE provide a platform for in-between voices from multiple cultural backgrounds. Focusing on western Europe, West Asia and North Africa (to which we personally belong), we explore creative and critical approaches that challenge the global north-south power dynamic through art and digital culture.
(A)WAKE collective
Sound design by Reda Senhaji
Technical lead: Ringailė Demšytė
VR design by Ringailė Demšytė and Remi Datora
Guided by Salim Bayri
In collaboration with Muhcine Ennou
Exhibition design by Hanane Mouhdi
Production Tugba Bahceci
Script and text by Shirin Mirachor