Louise

Louise is an audiovisual play that unfolds in the recording studio. The work is a diorama of a recording session, where we sit in the control room and listen to the story. Mediated through literary and artistic means, the story touches on immigration and the immigrant as a ghost-like figure, trapped in a liminal space, neither completely in the country of origin nor in his new country. The story is recounted by a ghost who also records it, its presence suggested through light and sound. In the story, the artist tries to summon the spirit of his grandmother so that she will tell him her immigration experience, just before his own immigration. The installation makes use of objects, architectural elements and theatrical means to create a multi-layered environment through which the story unfolds, with light and sound mediating between the objects in the studio and hinting at a spiritual world intertwined with the present moment.
The work explores human metamorphosis and transformation in its mythical and human sense. The transition between living to ghost and back, like the metamorphosis of insects, is a shift from one form to another. The motif of shape-shifting recurs throughout the work, leaving us to ponder: Will the cocoon of the artist’s grandmother undergo transformation? Or perhaps the creator himself will turn out to have already undergone transformation and operates in the liminal space, far from his former identity.