5000 Calls - Ljubljana

Installation on Shoemaker's Bridge, Ljubljana, Slovenia, June 2003

Shoemaker's Bridge in Ljubljana provided an altogether different setting for 5000 Calls. Unusually wide, the historic footbridge functions as a central piazza and meeting place over the river, right in the heart of the city. It forms part of architect Joze Plecnik’s river axis through the centre of Ljubljana, standing on the site of a former bridge where shoemakers once had their shops.

Leber and Chesworth utilised the surrounding neoclassical columns as twelve fixed points of sound, and carefully configured a version of 5000 Calls specifically for this site. 


Acknowledgements
Commissioned by Cankarjev Dom Arts Centre, with support from Arts Victoria


Responses
'Extraordinarily successful. The effect is arresting, literally stopping passers-by in their tracks...In Ljubljana, I saw a man tap his hasty companion on the shoulder, cupping the other hand to his ear to draw attention to the soundscape…precipitating a lively five-minute debate… Other passersby stayed over an hour, smoking silently in the sun.'
- Bleddyn Butcher, The Wire, London, July 2003

Return to the original project in Sydney

See the work in Cardiff, Wales