Listen To Me is an ongo­ing pro­ject whe­re I’m researching the rela­ti­ons­hip bet­ween the lis­te­ner and the sound he or she lis­tens to. We all lis­ten dif­fe­rent­ly, and the sounds we hear are colou­red by our own his­to­ry and iden­ti­ty. Listen To Me wants to explo­re the per­so­na­li­ty of lis­te­ning. It’s a pro­ject inspi­red by the pain­tings of Nicolaes Maes, a 17th cen­tu­ry Dutch mas­ter. In his ​‘eaves­drop­per pain­tings’ he shows a domestic set­ting, whe­re some­bo­dy is eaves­drop­ping on the other mem­bers of the hou­se­hold, some­ti­mes loo­king con­spi­ra­cious­ly at the spectator.

Listen To Me appro­a­ches the act of lis­te­ning side­ways, by using video. The instal­la­ti­on focu­ses on the lis­te­ner and zooms in on the minu­te and subt­le faci­al expres­si­ons of peo­p­le who are lis­te­ning. This is the only infor­ma­ti­on the spec­ta­tor has to ima­gi­ne the sounds being heard – on eve­ry screen, a per­son is absor­bed in lis­te­ning to sounds the spec­ta­tor can­not hear. The sounds remain only in the faces and minds of the lis­te­ners — on the screen and in front of it.