Glossolalia is a collaborative video project with Alaa Abu Asad. It reveals poetic diversity and is an ode to the pleasure of looking at images and listening to sounds.

In Glossolalia, tonal language or speaking in tongues transforms difficult communication and misunderstandings into playful and refined poetry. References to the online gatherings of Under the Tower / Onder de Kerktoren / تحت البرج exhibition-project are present but never overbearing. Glossolalia is a conversation between the artists, and through audiovisual elements it offers a window on the world, an invite to a contemplative journey.

Glossolalia is a form of uncommon speech behaviour and is also known as ‘tonal language’ or ‘speaking in tongues’. A visual language can be clear to one person and totally ambiguous to another, yet arousing their curiosity. Translation creates a Tower of Babel. Language, whether visual or textual, evokes associations that are rooted in history, context and culture.

This video is produced as part of the exhibition project Under the Tower / Onder de Kerktoren / تحتالبرج  and inspired by its online conversations, with the participation of Griet Dobbels, Els Vermeersch, Essa Grayeb, Jack Persekian, Els Vanden Meersch, Manal Mahamid, Stef Van Bellingen, Milena Desse, Mirna Bamieh, Shada Safadi, Shuruq Harb, Renad Shqeirat, Jessy Rahman, Rosh Abdelfatah, Blanka De Bruyne, Sam Eggermont en Stefaan Van Biesen.

Funded by Flanders, State of the Art