2014
Large-scale weavings are suspended from the ceiling in a half-circular shape. They are heavy, ruinous walls—hand-dyed black, gray and shades of red—and bear the weight of gravity as they slump toward the floor. Imbedded and hidden in the heavy weavings, are sounds of a cello and rocks dragging on the ground and against one another. The viewer enters the half-circular structure and can hear two different sounds coming from separate sides of the woven “walls”. From one wall, the sound of a cello, from the other, the sound of rocks. The sounds are not attempting to harmonize with one another, yet they both evoke a melancholic atmosphere. They are pure, raw and have not been edited. The bodily presence and ruinous quality of the work are congruous with the sounds emitted from it; the sounds are fragmented and fleeting. These permeable auditory elements bring to mind traces of the past: the rocks invoke rubble from ruins and the cello is haunting and emotional.
Sound credit: Hilary Hodgins on cello
Other sounds (rocks & shells) by Mary Grisey