Nénette by Miyu Hosoi

Miyu Hosoi works with sound and installation to capture moments that often pass unnoticed, treating listening as a way of holding time. Her works function as quiet recording devices, where presence is not fixed but unfolds through duration, memory, and attention.​

Nénette, part of the Human Archive Center series, takes the form of a suspended metal slab with a small overhanging speaker. Its matte stainless-steel surface acts as both a blurred mirror and an acoustic reflector, limiting visual clarity while shaping the way sound is experienced.

The work redirects the viewer away from image toward a more attentive, embodied form of listening.​

The recording was made at the Jardin des Plantes, in front of the enclosure of Nénette, a female orangutan who has lived there for over fifty years. Voices, ambient sounds, and subtle gestures emerge gradually — children asking questions, moments of stillness, the metallic rhythm of keys as a keeper closes the space. These fragments accumulate into a layered narrative, where the distance between observer and observed begins to dissolve.​

Nénette engages multiple senses through the relationship between sound, space, and reflection. The metal surface subtly returns the presence of the viewer, while shaping the way sound is projected and perceived, creating an environment where listening becomes an active, spatial experience.​

Sustainability is approached through time and attention rather than material solutions. The work highlights a temporal imbalance: brief human encounters contrasted with a life unfolding over decades. By making this asymmetry audible, Nénette considers responsibility as something that persists beyond visibility — sustained through listening, memory, and the conditions that continue even in our absence.

In Nénette, sustainability is expressed through temporal asymmetry. Visitors engage briefly, while Nénette’s existence spans decades. The work makes this imbalance audible, asking how responsibility continues even when visibility fades and care becomes routine or institutional. Sustainability here is not framed as recovery or progress, but as remaining with what persists… listening to lives and conditions that continue regardless of our presence.