OLGA KOKCHAROVA

Alors que les paupières se ferment, l’ouïe se confond avec les autres sens et tout devient son

Spruce, sheet metal, audio equipment, 2026

In the lower part of the park, several beehives occupy what was once the vegetable garden. Here, the terraced slope blocks out distant industrial noise while accentuating sounds produced nearby: voices drifting up from the town below, children playing, trains passing, vegetation rustling in the wind – and the steady hum of the resident bees.

With this installation, Olga Kokcharova encourages us to listen more attentively to the park’s invisible and fleeting soundscape. Loudspeakers concealed in small spruce structures broadcast audio recorded on site. Layered over the sounds already present in the park, these recordings make the acoustic environment feel fuller and more textured while leaving its character intact.

At certain moments, the soundtrack cuts out without warning, making us suddenly aware that it had been there all along. But the interruption does not produce silence; instead, it exposes the sounds it had masked, prompting us to tune into details that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

Kokcharova’s installation breaks with the conventional codes of the visual arts. It asks us, as visitors, to stop looking and start listening – to actively focus our attention on the sounds produced by the people, animals and plants that inhabit the park and to make the acoustic environment an integral part of our experience.

Olga Kokcharova (CH, RUS, b. 1985*) lives and works in Switzerland.