It’s ‘another world’: a part-theatre, part-art installation in Hong Kong offers visitors a multisensory experience to wander through

‘The Travellers and The Listeners’, a performance inspired by a poem and held in a theatre in West Kowloon, transports visitors to an ominous, desolate universe

The multisensory presentation uses a haunting soundtrack, dreamlike visuals, technology and live musicians and actors to bring the 1912 poem to life

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“The Travellers and The Listeners” is a part-theatre, part-art installation in Hong Kong that transport visitors to an ominous, desolate universe inspired by a poem of English writer Walter de la Mare. Photo: Elson Li

Published: 4:45pm, 19 Jul 2023Updated: 11:20am, 20 Jul 2023

The moment you walk into “The Travellers and The Listeners”, the multimedia experience transports you to an ominous and desolate universe.

The theatre at Freespace in Hong Kong, in the centre of the West Kowloon Cultural District’s art park, has been turned into a dark, dreamlike environment with a padded floor, a haunting soundtrack and stacks of chairs everywhere. These are covered in sheets, bringing to mind a child’s idea of what ghosts look like.

A performer moves through the space slowly, reaching out as if feeling for something we cannot see. He bangs on an invisible door. Those who left the chairs behind do not answer his call.

Over the course of an hour, the audience can walk through nine scenes that take them through a part-theatre, part-art installation that is inspired by the English writer Walter de la Mare’s 1912 The Listeners.

Stacks of chairs are covered in sheets in “The Travellers and The Listeners”. Photo: Elson Li

The 36-line poem describes a traveller standing at the door of an abandoned house filled with phantoms. They listen as he knocks on the door, and asks repeatedly if anybody is home. But they do not respond, leaving him perplexed and alone.