What does the word »island« mean to you? What feeling does it evoke?

Installed beneath the pergola of the Botanical Garden on the Freundschaftsinsel (»Isle of Friendship«) in Potsdam, various personal takes on the notion of »island« have been interwoven in the walkable audio book, »a secret archipelago«. Poems and literary quotations as well as personal accounts are recited in eight different languages — simultaneously translated and accompanied by versions in German. The parallel pairs of spokes(wo)men have never met in person and could only identify one another by the sound of their voices. Distributed across five linearly-aligned speakers and embedded in an ocean of insular soundscapes and musical scores, an archipelago of distinct individual voices unfolds.

Developed in the context of the Localize Festival and this years’s topic of »islands«, the installation furthermore provided portraits of the spoke(wo)men focusing only the back of their heads along with all the recited texts in both floating laminated sheets as well as book format.