On this side — Annabelle

On this side, 2021
site-specific text
developed for TENT, Rotterdam (NL)

This poem was installed at one of the windows of TENT Rotterdam, and on show for the whole duration of their closing due to the lockdown. It was part of the final stage of my work Dear, an expanding series of textual murals that grew and changed during the course of the exhibition ‘Wat ik je nog wilde zeggen’.

Knowing that the exhibition wouldn’t reopen again due to the lockdown, I rewrote the final chapter of Dear, now centering on the idea of a narrator that has lost her voice, by losing her audience. The words and sentences are all written knowing that there would never be a reader to read them.

In contrast with the invisible murals inside, I wrote On this side, a poem that eagerly yearns towards the viewers outside and makes some subtle references to the works on view inside.