Syden

Blue sea, white beaches

Syden means ‘South’ in all the Scandinavian languages. It evokes a Southern holiday destination: warm, cheap and with every amenity, offering comfort as a utopian haven of refuge. With its blue sea, white beaches and cheerful, light-hearted atmosphere, it is far removed from a reality that is complex and disturbed. For Belgians, this sounds like the mass exodus to Spain in the dark winter months.

Syden explores the mystery, authenticity and perversity of this parallel universe with its own rules, routines, rhythms and aesthetic. The musician and composer Niko Hafkenscheid, the visual artist Hedvig Biong and the film-maker Pablo Castilla conceive Syden as a mini-opera. Central to the piece are a series of songs based on interviews with tourists, which are sung live by those very same tourists.