Writer Louise Gray draws attention to ‘echoes that ripple outwards’ when we narrate personal histories to attuned ears*. A ‘deeper-listening’ occurs, sensitive to bodies of all beings that have been pushed to the margins. A call to extend the senses appears as a key thematic amongst the 13 graduating sound artists within this group show. Together, they constitute a sounding community – using whisper, mimicry, weight and humour to traverse topics through installation, film, sculpture and performance. Echoes of these works ripple outwards from Dilston Gallery through the vibrations of their sonic and infrasonic waves, and the bodies of visitors who carry them further.
*Louise Gray, ‘Hein, Eliane’ in Bodies of Sound (Silver Press, 2024).
Exhibiting Artists
Ethan Cohen | Vendela Haakonsen | Amias Hanley | Ni Jia | Da Won Kwack | Jiachen Li | Yilin Ma | Claudia Gudin | Marina Sanchez | Sahishnu Tongaonkar | Millie Watson | Jiali Yang | Linlin Zhang
Claudia Gudin’s participatory installation invites visitors to test how sound rearticulates the spatial experience. Ethan Cohen’s ‘Does Sifting Through Damage Ease’ finds ways to listen to pavements that have been damaged by trees and the ‘heave’ of bodies. ‘Whisper’, by Jiachen Li, appears as a humanoid mushroom sculpture, hollow and inviting viewers to interact with it sonically. Yilin Ma displays a wind chime that draws attention towards the disharmonious relationship between urban development and nature. In Millie Watson’s ‘My Beloved’, monsters are companions that could help us recognise and navigate existential anxieties.
Amias Hanley’s ‘Aisles of Mimetica’ is a sound sculpture and essay that investigates how organisms and technologies mimic the sounds of other species, machines, or environmental sources to absorb, transfer, or transmit sonic knowledges. ‘Vermes Auricularies’, by Sahishnu Tongaonkar, reimagines microphones as exotic species to be displayed, studied, modified, and preserved. Jiali Yang’s ‘Echoes from the Far East’ connects London to Chaoshan through the voices of its diaspora in the UK. Linlin Zhang offers a live painting performance that shares her experience with synesthesia and encourages viewers to ‘feel together’. Da Won Kwack renders audible the artist’s concern about social pressure, inviting a dancer to respond to text scores. Vendela Haakonsen invites listeners to a quadraphonic installation that alludes to the effect of trauma on the body, and considers its power to reshape inhuman systems. Marina Sanchez inventively adapts medical devices – oxygen masks, metal tubes, ambu bags – to become sounding instruments. Their performance brings a sympathetic response to the felt experience of a body alienated.
Curator: Hannah Kemp-Welch with Irene Revell
Course Leader: Thomas Gardner
The research symposium will take place at Dilston Gallery on Saturday 7 Dec, 1 – 3pm, with invited speaker Joseph Rizzo Naudi – a partially blind writer, facilitator and researcher. Rizzo Naudi collaborates with artists and curators on embedded inclusion interventions for galleries and museums, having worked with Wellcome Collection, Hypha Studios, UglyDuck, Henry Moore Institute and the National Gallery, among others. His practice-based PhD research at Royal Holloway combines fiction technique, artwork description and the creative potential of blindness
Symposium convened by David Mollin and Salomé Voegelin.
London College of Communication (LCC)
LCC, part of University of the Arts London (UAL), is a pioneering world leader in media and design education and research programmes geared to preparing students for successful creative careers. Our courses are known for being industry focused with students taught by an inspiring community of experienced academics, technical experts and leading specialist practitioners. Generations of award- winning photographers, filmmakers, screenwriters, journalists, broadcasters, designers and advertising and PR professionals have started their careers at LCC, and today’s graduates continue to be highly sought after and win prestigious international awards.
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