MaMA 

Inspired by the exhibition, Worlds between Words, and its focus on sense and space, Team MAMA member and editor Cassandra Langenskiöld set out to explore the possibility of creating a soundtrack of Rotterdam, evoking both the city’s identity and that of her own within it.

There’s a score to Rotterdam: the metro, the rain, the endless turn of bicycle wheels. It might belong to the background of our daily experiences, but it is there, nevertheless. 

As someone who moves around, or lives in a place that is not their own, at some point you start to feel like you own your own version of the city. You may not know the ins and outs of the city like the natives do, or share their far-reaching roots or mannerisms; your version may be the route you take to work or the bars you visit with your friends, or the park with your favourite bench. But what about the sounds of these places, the buzz and hum you cannot see but which form a world of their own?

Noise, the sound of life persisting, is the soundtrack to our urban environment and our everyday existence. Sound is a phenomena of the human experience, of our immersion in the world we live in. I like to think that each city I live in sounds different. Helsinki is the rattle of tram tracks, the silent fall of snow, the scream of seagulls; Edinburgh is the ancient cobble stones, wet leaves, and crowded pubs. Rotterdam, the place I have called home for the last five years, is a cacophony of scooters, sirens, and trains; of the wind in my ears, the dank-u-wels and alsjebliefts. It’s the bustle of Witte de With on a Friday night and water taxis, of skateboards on concrete.

These are the sounds that tie me to the city and make me feel at home in a place that was once completely alien to me; when I close my eyes and listen, these are the sounds of my Rotterdam.