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The Dutch artist Willem de Rooij is Narcisse Tordoir’s colleague at the Royal Academy in Amsterdam. De Rooij’s work endeavours to disrupt the art world’s prevailing conventions.

For Farafra he edited together different camel noises. When we listen to the different voices, the variety of their tonal range is striking. It is almost as if they are speaking their own language and trying to tell a story. The playful sound of these blaring camels, who clearly want to be heard, stands in sharp contrast to the tragedy of their existence. The camel, after all, is one of the biggest animals in the desert, an animal everyone fears. The sound it makes is close to a lament, leaving us with the impression that its story might be one of extreme loneliness.

Representing a sound system in book form is far from simple. Willem de Rooij asked Narcisse Tordoir to choose a shade of green to represent his work. Tordoir opted for a shade of green from the work of Walid Al Shami, and de Rooij upgraded this green surface into a new work of art.