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It is not the monumental allure, but the restrained intensity that makes this work striking. Anyone viewing the sculpture feels the tension between confinement and power. The title given to it by the artist says almost everything: A Coffined Cry Cries Out in the Crowd.

Artist Eylem Aladogan explains: “I wanted to create an image of pain so deep that you would want to scream it out to the ‘sleeping world’ around you. Not a literal human figure, but the imprint of pain: the echo of a cry, captured in form and material.”

Themes such as willpower and resistance are characteristic of Aladogan's oeuvre. The title of the sculpture refers both to protest songs and to the work of the English poet and artist William Blake, in whom Aladogan recognizes a similar sense of devotion and radicalism. The cry to which the title refers is not an audible sound, but is translated into a concrete and tangible image. The work shows a body that remains silent and, precisely because of this, speaks: a human cry as a silent but ultimate form of resistance.

The sculpture, created especially for De Beeldengalerij, is literally located among passers-by. Those who walk around it and view the positive and negative sides of the artwork experience how it simultaneously closes itself off and stands its ground. The inner tension remains palpable: not a heroic statement, but a silent form of resistance, right in the heart of the city.