Mila Lanfermeijer
Work Information

Song of Passage, 2013

1-Channel Video, Color, 9’45
Carpet 300 x 400 cm

For the installation Song of Passage a white carpet was placed in the industrial space of Het Openbare Verlichtingsgebouw. Handmade charcoal borders frame the centre of the carpet. In traditional carpet design the border of a carpet mark the barrier between the inner carpet as a divine, clean, spiritual and magical place for prayer, and the outside world. Treated with the soft black, brittle material the carpet plays with the idea of fragility and examines the passing of time. A short film of a young man shaving his head above a sink in a small bathroom is projected in the clean centre. The penetrating sound of the electric shaver echoes in the large space. The act of shaving can be used as manifestation of identity, to create disciplined conformity, as an act of sacrifice, as punishment or as a rite of passage. In the installation ‘A song of passage’, the clean and the dirty, the light and the dark, are used to create a ritualistic and transitional space to show this intimate ceremony.

Song of Passage