The Whisperers

The Whisperers project started in 2021 influenced and inspired by five workshop sessions that took place between November 2020 and June 2021 in a kindergarten classroom, l'École alsacienne in Paris, with 5-year-old students.

During the workshops, children were invited to pay attention to how sound is produced through materials, how it alters spatial perception, how the body itself can function as a resonating chamber, and how sound can be transformed into movement and energy.

The experiments that took place during these sessions were synthesised into Whispering Playground. Different auditory sources and inputs (industrial sounds, water, percussion instruments, vinyl records) converge in an intricate circuit of water, sound and vibration. Designed for groups of 8 to 12 people, from 4 years old, the work introduces participants to the concepts of vibration, underwater sound and rotation in an exploratory and playful way. A series of works specifically related to these experiences have been developed creating the body of work The Whisperers.

In 2021, The Whisperers was shown at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris. In 2022, as recipient of the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize, Atoui presented the project at The Contemporary Austin, then in a reconfigured and expanded version at The FLAG Art Foundation in New York. In 2023, The Whisperers became part of larger exhibitions bringing together several of Atoui's projects, first at IAC Villeurbanne (2023–24), then at Cukrarna Gallery in Ljubljana, S.M.A.K. in Ghent and GfZK in Leipzig (2024), Royal Commission of Alula (2025) and IMMA in Dublin (2026).

For the exhibition For Children: Art Stories since 1968 at Haus der Kunst in Munich (2025), a new version of Whispering Playground was produced: Band Camp. Conceived as an installation activated through participation, it alternates between demonstrations and workshops. Partly inspired by the setting of a campsite, its "instruments" are all connected electrically or hydraulically through cables and pipes. Sound is treated as a physical phenomenon activated through use, with children handling materials and responding to vibration through gesture.