Author:
Slavica Janešlieva
Title: Reminiscence (The Sound That Speaks), 2025
Sound installation and text, at Maksim Gorki Street No. 8
There are
sounds that become etched into the body, not just into hearing.
One such sound is the rhythm of the typewriter. Each strike — tak, tak...
then a pause... tak again — carries time within it, it brings back
memory.
The sound of the typewriter reminds me of home, of childhood and youth. Of a
time when one felt cared for and safe. While my mother worked on her papers,
the typing could be heard in the morning, throughout the day, in the evening,
even while we slept... The machine was an extension of her thoughts, and for
me, its sound marked her presence.
When I hear that sound today, I don’t just hear a device. I hear her. I
hear love. I hear a time that will never return, but one that can still be
summoned.
This sound installation captures that moment — in a public space, on a street
in the city of Skopje. The sound of a typewriter, repeated at selected
intervals, pulses through Maksim Gorki Street, in front of the building where
my mother grew up. Here, among the trees, asphalt, and buildings, the echo of
the past can be heard. And presence is marked. It is the sound of a home, a
woman, a city.
A city is not only an urban structure. It is an accumulation of personal sounds
and quiet memories.
Tonight, I want Skopje to remember.
The face of my Skopje — this central part of the city — will remain only
in memory. Its new appearance has been imposed, and I experience it as an
aggression against the personal and living memories.
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