Echolalia, 2014

Echolalia:

1 a: the meaningless repetition of words and phrases; b: the repetition of words and phrases by a child that is learning to speak; c: a depreciatory term for a succession of sounds in poetry which subordinates sense to sound (Oxford English Dictionary).

2 a: a solo exhibition by Belgian artist Ana Torfs at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, featuring works from the past five years, all but one never shown in Belgium before, as well as a new installation, ‘The Parrot & the Nightingale, a Phantasmagoria’; b: a book that establishes a dialogue with the exhibition by reimagining, refiguring and reframing all its elements, conceived by the artist and designed by Jurgen Persijn, with essays by Emiliano Battista, Gabriele Mackert, Kassandra Nakas, Catherine Robberechts, Christophe Van Gerrewey, Ana Torfs, and a foreword by Dirk Snauwaert.

3: the memory of the indistinct and immemorial babble that, in being lost, allowed all languages to be (Daniel Heller-Roazen).