OWARI – the art of coping

 

OWARI – the art of coping is an augmented audio experience route: a form situated between an exhibition and a performance.

 

OWARI consists of nine installations / scenes, scattered throughout the church, where visitors – wearing headphones – can wander freely.

 

The Japanese word owari means ‘end’. OWARI explores the boundary between loss and resilience, and investigates how we hold our ground in a world that is faltering.

 

Every visitor experiences OWARI in their own way: the sequence, tempo, and duration of the scenes are determined by the visitor's personal route. The specially developed headphone system recognizes the wearer's position and precisely aligns music, text, and sound with what is playing out on screen at that moment – ​​a film clip, a movement of light, a sculptural object. In this way, image, environment, and sound remain connected, and the work unfolds in a continuous interplay between space, sound, and time.

 

OWARI was developed in collaboration with various other artists: visual artist Iris Bouwmeester, filmmaker Auke Hamers, animator Jos Meijers, mezzo-soprano Els Mondelaers, performer Michael Jahoda, soprano Claron McFadden, author Gaea Schoeters, creative technologist Hans Timmermans, set builder Simon Haen, all-rounder René van Commenée.

 

The Stevenskerk Nijmegen is a partner and the location of the first performance. Over the coming four years, OWARI will visit five other major churches (in Arnhem, Zwolle, Groningen, Leiden, and Breda), where it will be on display and available to experience for a month at each location. At each new location, one scene disappears, creating a new, site-specific installation. In this way, OWARI is an ever-evolving work of art.