Kyoko Scholiers created a telephone box that has been travelling around the country visiting men, women and children who are somehow disconnected from society. The callers are prisoners, refugees, vagrants and homeless people, but also prostitutes, patients or just people who ran out of luck, youngsters growing up in the absence of their parents, (ex) cult members, hermits, monks and loners of all sorts. With all of them, Scholiers talked for one hour every season, for one year, collecting more than 240 hours of telephone calls.

Scholiers edited the recordings of these conversations in five-minute sound excerpts, to be listened to in an installation of four unique telephone boxes. As you step into a phone booth, you will find phone numbers written and carved on the wall. Numbers of people you won’t find in the book. They have left messages as well: some are cryptic, others more direct. When you dial one of these numbers, you hear the voice of an unknown caller resounding for five minutes with words and thoughts that he or she entrusted to the artist during the year. Through these very personal stories, the world seeps in.

Concept, creation Kyoko Scholiers
Assistance research & production Lot Vandekeybus
Dramaturgy Tom Hannes
Set Koen Schetske, Ed Scholiers, Guy Van den Bril, Werner Musenbrock/Bric-a-Brock, Bram Verhagen
Sound edit Stijn Cole / Earbug, Kyoko Scholiers
Executive production Caravan Production (Brussel, BE)
Co-productie De Warande (Turnhout, BE), C-TAKT (Genk, BE), kc nOna (Mechelen, BE), KAAP (Oostende / Brugge, BE), Zomer van Antwerpen (BE)
With the support of ccBE Cultuurcentrum Berchem (BE), de stad Antwerpen, de Vlaamse Overheid
Thanks to Anthony Cranes, Luc Nys, Sam Van Wynsberghe, Frank Van den Wyngaert, Ben De Rydt, Jasper Suys, Maxim Rausenberger, Ward Michiels, Sven Libeert, Philippe Wagemans, Tobias Dosogne, Kristin Vercammen and the many other people who helped with the creation
Special thanks to all callers, CAW Antwerpen, CKG De Kleine Vos, Villa Voortman, Woonzorgcentrum Sint-Maria, Wingerdbloei, Fedasil, Boysproject, Inloopcentrum De Steenhouwer, opvangcentrum De Plataan, Kluis van Moria, IVCA, Taalfabet, Campus De Markt, SAS vzw
In memory of Paul Goethals

Image credit: Kyoko Scholiers – Misconnected © Sigrid Spinnox

Kyoko Scholiers
°1981, Antwerpen, Belgium

Kyoko Scholiers is a theater maker, actress and artist. She graduated from Studio Herman Teirlinck in 2003 and ever since worked as an actress and performance maker with De Roovers, Het Toneelhuis, Comp.Marius, Theater Antigone, HETPALEIS, BRONKS and others. With fellow artists Louis van der Waal and Maarten Westra Hoekzema she founds the collective unm. Together they created projects like Tussen hond en wolf in 2009 and The house that built us in 2012. In the meantime, with Ruth Becquart, she creates the performance LETTER. This production won the Dioraphte prize. In 2015, Kyoko created Bastard. In 2016 the installation Misconnected follows, which premiers in 2017. Kyoko Scholiers is also a prominent film and tv actress with roles in a.o. Any Way the Wind Blows by Tom Barman, Rosie (Patrice Toye), Stille Waters en De hel van Tanger (Frank van Mechelen), and in various Flemish tv series, most recently the fiction series Geub.