For the first episode of Nest Radio, Samira Ben Messaoud talks to artist Henk Schut. His exhibition The Singing Parliament can be seen until July 7 at Nest in Laak on the Verheeskade. It is an installation of 150 loudspeakers, each with its own voice, as many as there are seats in the House of Representatives. These different voices and sounds create a constant series of soundscapes that you can walk through, sit or lie down in.
The basis for The Singing Parliament is the piece Deus venerunt gentes by the English composer William Byrd. Byrd wrote the play in the late sixteenth century, when the Roman Catholic faith was banned in England. In the composition Byrd incorporated his criticism of war and the destruction of holy places. The text can also be seen as an expression of the religious and political tensions in England at the time. Byrd, himself a Catholic, used the power of music to express his voice, despite the risk of persecution himself.
Schut supplements Byrd's music with a series of sounds from his inexhaustible sound archive, which sound from homemade speakers. Schut thus builds a bridge to the present with his own parliament in sound. With the 'real' House of Representatives around the corner, Schut's installation raises questions about democracy, whose voice is heard and which sounds remain invisible or unheard.
