2022/2025 | sound installation, 7 speakers, 7 bird nesting boxes, environmental sounds | Exhibition view Theresienstein Hof 2025 | Foto: Heidi Innmann

What does home („Heimat“) mean to you? What melodies do you associate with this individual idea of home? These were the questions I asked in order to find people in Hof who want to participate in my project “Rhapsody”.
Rhapsody tries to rethink the concept of home as a polyphonic sound, that forms a home in which all people as well as animals and nature are equally involved. To find a universal, common language, I asked people to whistle their melodies. An identification of personal characteristics such as age, sex or origin was no longer possible on the basis of voice.

The recordings of the whistled melodies are then played from small loudspeakers in the park, so that the whistling blends in the surrounding sound carpet. People, birds and the wind in the trees now whistle together. Thus a sound image of home arises, a large whole, which nevertheless allows polyphony and diversity. After the exhibition, the bird nesting boxes are left to the animals.

The melodies were whistled by Ahmad Miah, Alina Juravel, Bedir Canbay, Denis Mehmeti, Denison Pereira DaSilva, Filippo Italiano, Frank Hoffmann, Gülüzar Canbay, Hawin Canbay, Johnny Herzog von Schnarchenreuth, Katharina von Mammen, Kenan Canbay, Lina Redfearn, Lukas Nothnagel, Marija Čečović, Marina Waller, Oli Redfearn, Slawek Dudar, Sophie Innmann, Sultan Canbay, Yuliia Dobroliubova and Yvonne Rodriguez.

The project was funded by Musikfonds e. V. and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Radio report Bayerischer Rundfunk