Salens Stemmer – Sandra Boss

Salens Stemmer (The Voices of The Hall) is a permanent 8 speaker sound installation made for the beautilful banquet hall of the Workers’ Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The work was commisioned by the Workers Museum in Copenhagen in 2021 and made by composer Sandra Boss and dramaturg Astrid Hansen Holm.

Salens Stemmer comprises songs, music and speaches to form a sonic staging of the Workers’ history.

The work surprises visiters of the banquet hall with songs from the workers songbook that are both hummed and sung by a 8 person workers’ choir. Each of the 8 voices are distributed through their own speaker, which makes it possible to move close to one voice in particular or experience the full choir in the middle of the room. Each voice corresponds to one of the many wooden reliefs that frame the banquet hall. The reliefs show various craftsmen – from typographers and blacksmiths to carpenters and tailors. Added voices and sounds of the craft, the workers on the reliefs come to live. The many songs revive the rich song culture of the workers’ movement, and act like a sonic exhibition of a very crucial part of the workers’ cultural history.

In addition to the daily choir work, the installation also conists of three sound stories that depicts crucial events that have taken place in the banquet hall. The three sound stories are all based on speeches and events that have taken place in the ballroom. Amongst others we hear the voice of Nelson Mandela, Thorvald Stauning (former prime minister of Denmark) and Rosa Luxemburg. The speaches have been reconstructed based on thorough research or they appear in original form found in the Workers’ Museum’s own sound archive.

Salens Stemmer runs every day in the opening hours of the museum.

Arbejdermuseet
Rømersgade 22
1362 København

❤❤❤❤❤ REVIEW from Politiken, December 2021

Photo: Malthe Folke Ivarsson

Photos: Malthe Folke Ivarsson