Throughout the twentieth century, telephone cabinets or so- called “switchboards” were used to connect people by telephone with the help of a (usually female) operator. Every company had such a modular system, placed in a custom-made cabinet that reflected the organization. The user-friendly system could be adapted in line with changes within the company: expanded or reordered. Bosmans is interested in folkloric qualities: the switchboards contain functional, mass-produced elements, but the cabinet around them can be made to reflect one’s own taste and needs. The device, which is manually operated, constitutes a link between different private spaces and allows people to bridge geographic distances, merging semi-public and private spaces. Bosmans made his own switchboards, the height of which is based on his own length. Switchboard (WIELS in preparation for Wolfgang Tillmans) is a portrait of WIELS, Center for Contemporary Visual Art in Brussels, during the installation of the Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition last year. It presents, as it were, a snapshot of the employees, sponsors, lenders and other stakeholders at that specific moment in time. Switchboard (Colander & J.Zelf) is a representation of the holes in a colander. The photo on the rear side of the sculpture was taken by Piet Zwart, who was commissioned by the PTT (Dutch State Company of Post, Telegraphy and Telephony from 1893 to 1989) to make a children’s booklet about mail and telephony in 1930. The main character of this story was J. Zelf, a man made of toilet rolls.