For the 18th Istanbul Biennial we developed a haptic mutlichannel sound installation for Doruntina Kastrati’s A Horn That Swallows Songs.

A Horn That Swallows Songs (2025) investigates the residual cost of invisible labour – particularly that performed by women – in Istanbul’s Turkish Delight (lokum) factories. The installation unfolds across two rooms, generating an immersive environment that echoes the conditions of the factory floor: endless shifts, repetitive rhythms and prolonged standing. Meanwhile, low-frequency vibrations emanating from ultrasonic speakers, floor transducers and sub-woofers travel through the floor into viewers’ bodies, transmitting a visceral bodily sensation.

At the heart of the installation stands a polished metal structure embedded with four video screens. Each screen displays documentary footage drawn from Kastrati’s field visits to lokum factories, including interviews with workers. One video features a single narrator’s voice taken from interview transcripts, highlighting the gap between the workers’ realities and the sanitised versions of management, further underscoring the enforced silence and controlled narratives surrounding their labour. While the presence of supervisors in these interviews is subtle, their influence remains palpable – shaping not only the workers’ conditions, but also their capacity for speech, expression and disclosure. In an adjoining room, a sculpture fashioned from repurposed factory machinery takes the form of a horn-like vent, recalling those used in halva-making and underscoring the entanglement between sound, labour, and architectures of production.