Safra Square, Jerusalem Municipality

45 minutes

"Hanging Garden" is a performative art piece that takes place in a public square at the center of Jerusalem's municipality facilities. The piece aims to create an immersive and engaging listening experience within this bustling environment. Twenty-one performers gradually inhabit the space, creating a temporary deterritorialized area that becomes a performative zone. The performers move through the square playing music, singing, and choreographing movements that produce a dynamic sound experience. Their actions constantly modify the boundaries of the "garden."

The minimalistic musical composition draws attention to every sonic event, making the square a highly sensitive auditory environment where all sounds and movements, regardless of the source, are highlighted. This blurs the lines between intentional performance and incidental occurrences, making the audience - municipal workers, passersby, and others in the square significant contributors to the creation and continuation of "Hanging Garden” (“hanging” in Hebrew also means “dependent”). Within this estranged environment, even everyday events like a street-cleaning vehicle crossing are perceived as significant occurrences.

The entirely acoustic music incorporates parade motifs, horn blasts, polyphonic textures, syllabic singing, echoing, antiphonal techniques, and extended silences.

The conception of "Hanging Garden" coincided with the ongoing mass protests in Israel against government corruption. Taking cues from the demonstrations as an alternative public space performance, "Hanging Garden" nurtures an immersive environment that spotlights each distinct voice, sound, and action, underscoring the reverberating impact they collectively generate.