Then, the Bark
Six channel sound installation, 10 min. (loop)
Konstfrämjandet Västerbotten, Umeå, Sweden, 2017

Wood, screws, cables, yoghurt, light, glass, letters, headphones, sound. A sound installation, a situation (about ten minutes long). Listening. Rain. Voices that vibrate in your body. Loss, change, and the desire to become trees. As the sun sets, the space slowly turns green.  

Sheets of wood have been placed in the gallery space. They serve as loudspeakers, as does the window glass when the gallery is closed. Visitors can touch and lean against the wood, feeling the sound against their skin while voices speak in the headphones. The work is inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the story in book eight in which an old couple’s last wish is fulfilled: to, after a long life together, die at the same moment, so that the one will not need to bury and mourn the other. At their moment of death the gods transform them into trees.

The work is part of Janna Holmstedt’s research project Are You Ready for a Wet Live-In? Explorations into Listening at Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University, and Malmö Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Lund University, in the framework of Konstnärliga forskarskolan, Sweden.

Language: English
Thank you Pedro Martinez and Marcus Pal