FoMO Moengo - Work for Moengo Festival Tembe fu libi II - 2018

FoMO Moengo
(a collaborative work with Vera Visser for the Moengo Festival of Visual Arts
work made possible with a grant from the Mondriaanfonds)

Fear of Missing Out Moengo” is about being for a while in an unfamiliar place and you want to know what is happening in that place. So you won't miss out and think you understand that place. This collaborative work with Vera Visser is based upon our experiences while staying in Moengo, a small town in Suriname. A place where you hear lots of sounds and noises in the evening. Wanting to know what these sounds are we found out that nearly every time it was the loud music of cars, slowly driving or standing in front of the supermarkets.
Or … was something not observed, not understood or should something be experienced?
In our western culture FoMO is a feeling that creates unrest and uncertainty? Wanting to be part of “something”. Is it possible to leave our western culture? And experience a town like Moengo just like it is? We don't have an answer, just an expression of the impressions.
We made a kind of road map of the center of Moengo. The places where most of the sounds are concentrated are indicated with felt patterns based upon the local Marron culture. On top of these patterns are rubber tire tracks. A looping sound file of 10 minutes is played. The base of the sound file are cricket and frog noises. Irregular you hear the passing of cars with their music. The head lights burn according to the level of the passing sounds.

 
One minute of the 10-minutes sound loop

The work was created for this festival.