On 3 May, 2025, the exhibition project ‘IF IT IS, WHERE IS IT?’ will be officially concluded with a performance at 16:00 by Geert Breës performing poems of Nikolaas Demoen.
Nikolaas Demoen's third compilation, Zwijgzame zangvogels (Silent songbirds), connects seamlessly to the previous compilations, Tamelijk (2015) and Namaak (2019). The texts consist of sentences without capitals or punctuation and there is a double space between each word, giving the poems a typographic spread and a visual identity of their own.
Even more than in previous compilations, we experience a narrative confusion. The songbirds are silent, appearing only within the moment of singing, then hiding in the forest. They exist only in and thanks to singing, but will not or cannot explain the singing itself. In Nikolaas Demoen's poetry, the Dutch language resounds in varying sounds and moods. The language is sovereign, just as the whistling of the silent songbirds fills our aural space.
