KABAAL ORKEST
Kabaal Orkest was the result of a two-week residency in Wildernis—an island in the heart of Kortrijk, Belgium—where Wildebras currently runs an adventure playgound dedicated to free play. During the residency, together with other members of the Constructlab network, our goal was to work with children and neighbors in creating temporary installations, while also supporting the long-term project for the island.
The machine encourages listening as a way of seeing—creating new images by hearing, not looking. It’s an invitation to make the unrecognisable recognisable and the recognisable unrecognizable, to find fascination in the mundane and everyday, and to blur the lines between sound and music.
The KABAAL ORKEST Machine is a movable playground to explore sound.
Everyone is a bit noisy—and the KABAAL ORKEST Machine offers the capacity and access to explore and produce sound freely. It invites children to manipulate, discover, and create sonic experiences using hacked electronic toys, analog mechanisms, and resonant surfaces.
The machine has an outside and an inside. Sound travels in both directions: from the inside out, and the outside in. Children communicate through sound, perceive through sound, and play through sound. The KABALL ORKEST Machine becomes a space of shared imagination and discovery—a playful orchestra of materials, movements, and noise.
The process was hands-on and collaborative—rooted in experimentation, collective thinking, and a shared creative flow.
Finally the local school was invited to the island to play and experiment, eventually evolving into a noisy and celebratory parade on the streets of Kortrijk reclaimming the right to free play.
Type of Project: Art and Community
Place: Évora
Date: April/November 2023
Umbrella Project: Bairro Celeiros
Promoter: Associação Pédexumbo
Design and Investigation: Colectivo Til + Participants
Members of Colectivo Til: João Gonçalo Lopes, Diogo Monteiro
Production: Mariana Correia
Photography: Colectivo Til, Fu Qiang