Spectacular Tower of Babel installation open for two days this week
A tower of bamboo and a sound installation was built by multi-lingual volunteers to celebrate the language diversity of the city of Antwerp
‘Ode to multilingualism’
The tower was built over the last three months and unveiled to the public last weekend. It is equipped with a soundscape that mixes poetry, the sound of bamboo in the wind and the sounds generated from building the tower.
Vanhauwaert wrote a new poem for the city based on the process of building the tower. The concept sees the biblical story of the Tower of Babel turned around: Rather than the people being separated by languages and scattered, thereby unable to finish the tower, they come together amid many languages to build it.
“The Toren van Babel is a co-operative building project,” reads a statement, “but it’s also a meeting place to share poetry in all languages, a laboratory for super-diversity and an ode to the multilingualism of a multi-cultural city. The tower forms the basis for a new city poem and is also an audio installation featuring multi-lingual poetry.”
The tower is located on the grounds of an old slaughterhouse between Park Spoor Noord and Lobroek dock. It is free to visit on Wednesday from 14.00 to 18.00 and on Thursday from 18.00 to 21.00.
Photo courtesy VRT
