Ronit Eden. Concept & Spatial Design offers curatorship and exhibition design
© Ronit Eden. concept & spatial design
Design: Cubicle Design
Empty Playground
Etty Hillesum center, Deventer, Netherlands, 2023
A site specific installation of Amos van Gelder and Amit Gur, curatorship and exhibition design
The Empty Playground project consists of visual materials and sound work. The musical composition for Empty Playground was developed in close collaboration with Amos van Gelder. Amit drew inspiration from Amos's painting, his approach to visual textures, and his envisioned playground environment. In this work, Amit created a soundscape where the natural sounds of children visiting the exhibition seamlessly merge with field recordings of children playing in the soundscape, blurring the lines between the audience and the artwork.
A photo that was sent by chance to the artist Amos Van Gelder, inspired the creation of the site-specific installation: Empty Playground. The photograph commemorates a class of mixed-age children from Deventer. The children look straight at the camera, participating in the exciting act of capturing a memory. Shortly after the photograph was taken, everyone was murdered. Except for Felice Polak, who is sitting in the center of the photo.
At the heart of the Empty Playground project is a painting by the artist following this photograph. Like these children, most of the artist's family lived in Deventer, and many of them were murdered during the Holocaust. Empty Playground connects a private van Gelder-Odyssey to the children's personal story.