As part of a partnership with P&O Ferries, artconnexion offered Marjorie Van Halteren a residence on a ferry between Calais and Dover. This P&O residency enabled the artist to make several trips back and forth in the Channel and to stay in each of the cities. From the United States, Marjorie Van Halteren was a radio host for many years. This sound specialist captured during the various crossings the noises emitted by the boat and the voices of the passengers.

"When I told the British woman who checked my passport for P and O that I was an artist, riding the ferry back and forth all day for two days, she was rather surprised. when I told her why, she was even more so. "Sound? On the ferry? All I can imagine is screaming children." I replied that the last time I had been on the ferry, I had noticed that the sounds were in fact very interesting, and many very subtle. I had been thinking of the multi-harmonic drone of the machinery, the cries of the gulls, the water.

In fact, in actually doing it with my sensitive microphone, I found that it was really very noisy, fascinating, and sometimes quite violent.

Each side of the channel has a voice. I managed to eavesdrop.

French children parrot their teachers, obsessively practicing " hello, hello" - while on the other end, the English children practice "bonjour, bonjour." There is much anticipation during the crossing in each direction, as the respective foreign shore comes into view. It is surprising that the whole boat doesn't list in the water from the weight of the people at the window in the front. The laughter and cries of little angels.

And in the middle, violent sounds of a passage through - not exactly a hell, perhaps, but at least a kind of purgatory. A violent shaking to and from with the force of an earthquake...the two cultures are geographically so close, but so extremely different, estranged. But they meet each other with courage. and they go through something to do it."

Extract from the report by Marjorie Van Halteren, 2010

On the 11th September in 2012, Marjorie Van Halteren presented to artconnexion a sound work entitled Faeries composed of sounds recorded during the residency.