Points of Departure

The Wilhelminapier was the main departure point for thousands of migrants emigrating from Europe to America during the 20th Century. Points of Departure is the title for a series of installations commissioned for the pier in Rotterdam the Netherlands. Working with local students we corroboratively designed a mobile application that is connected to a wind sensor positioned at the end of the pier. The real-time wind data moves a digital compass on the mobile application, which creates different soundscapes according to the speed and direction of the wind.The soundscapes are composed from interviews that we made with migrants, foreigners and expats all now living in the Netherlands. The interviews are geolocated onto the compass and are played back according to the direction and speed of the wind on the Wilhelminapier.