The pieces we see in What you whispered into my ear (spread out into the world) are not so much the depiction of an event as traces of the imprint of an event. They reveal lived moments that have been extracted and placed in captivity, denaturalised. The artist's quasi-investigative intention is to recover a faded impression, reconstructing the sequence of events like a forensic scientist. It is as if we had been handed a key without knowing which door it opens, ambiguously coaxing us to partake of a worldly wisdom that is not our own but still seems oddly familiar. The sound we hear upon entering the room is also part of the exhibition; the artist uses a different, suggestive, less blatant sense to elicit an emotional response. The soundtrack consists of audio files recorded in the different places Lagata has visited in recent years, wildtracks that hazily transport us to a specific setting. These sounds reveal a particular trait of the temperament of each place, something we may not always notice but which is an inseparable part of the urban landscape and peoplescape.

There is no human presence in the installations, but there are a large number of traces of activity that we associate with memory. The exhibition is tangibly autobiographical. In the room where Lagata slept and spent many hours, we find ourselves in a private realm, the inner sanctum of his life in Berlin, a refuge that constitutes the fulcrum of this project. That self-discovery transpired during his long strolls through the city streets and the countless hours spent on the laptop in his room—isolated, protected, listening to music. One of the songs, "Lo que me dijiste al oído se extendió por todo el mundo", by the duo Escarlata, kept playing over and over again in his head. Slowly and constantly, the tune reverberated in his thoughts. The lyrics are simple, just a few phrases repeated time after time. But their meaning made Lagata recall times past, conversations held, moments shared... Eventually, the name of that track became the title of his show, and the poetry of its chorus created an enveloping lullaby that took him back to the warm cocoon of his room on Oldenburger Strasse.

Sema D’Acosta.

The exhibition catalogue features an essay by Sema D’Acosta, entitled Flânerie / Inside-out Berlin.

Visit Guide: 4 june, 12:30h.

Educational workshop: 4 and 5 june, 11:30 to 13:00h