Audio, Installation
1998/2015

Since her childhood Natasja Boezem has stayed regularly in an Italian mountain village. Once a week the fishmonger pays an early morning visit to the village. He transports his fish in an Ape, a small three-wheeled pickup truck with a two-stroke engine. From the loudspeaker attached to the roof his voice tempts the women to the village square, announcing the types of fish he has in stock and how to cook them.

His voice reflects the landscape. In the distance it is still faint, growing in volume as he nears the village square. The sound resonates against the changing scenery. Because the road spirals up the mountain to the village, sometimes the sound falls away only to reappear loud and clear after a sharp turn in the road. And so the residents know precisely how far away the fishmonger is: the acoustics acting as a geographic register of the Italian mountain landscape.

The project was installed on Abdijplein, creating a relationship between the sound and the square’s remarkable architecture. The loudspeakers were hanging on various facades around the square. In our imagination the fishmonger was driving around Abdijplein, the historical heart of Zeeland.