Curator and artist
I began dreaming of this exhibition in 2024, ultimately enrolling in school in 2025 to help lay the ethical and practical groundwork. Ultimately scaling up to a full exhibition, this project will grow organically with direct feedback from different publics through multiple iterative prototypes; I hope to bring the entire exhibition to the public in 2027-2028.
I began dreaming of this exhibition in 2024, ultimately enrolling in school in 2025 to help lay the ethical and practical groundwork. Ultimately scaling up to a full exhibition, this project will grow organically with direct feedback from different publics through multiple iterative prototypes; I hope to bring the entire exhibition to the public in 2027-2028.
Spatialized exhibition demo
Developed with and 3D rendered by Amélie Singoye
Developed with and 3D rendered by Amélie Singoye
As an arborist, forest technician, professional composer-performer, and emerging curator, I propose a project that celebrates and fosters empathy for forests through storytelling and sound. The project will share multisensory (vibratory, narrative, musical, tactile) community stories by grassroots land stewards of their relation to - and with - local forests. Visitors will be invited to approach, touch, lean on, and listen to wooden tree sculptures that emit sound via haptic (tactile), vibratory, and aural means. This sound will be the voices of local forest advocates currently, historically and atemporally connected to the Ottawa-Gatineau region; stories of people involved in small-scale, DIY, non-profit, grassroots initiatives that support forest stewardship. This exhibition will serve not only to celebrate forests, but also the many strong and vibrant local initiatives working to care for them, inviting the broader public to learn and engage with them.
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Suspended tree design
Developed with and 3D rendered by Amélie Singoye |
Lianas/vines design
Developed with and 3D rendered by Amélie Singoye |
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Sculptural prototypes above: the rectangular panels will have transducers mounted on them to receive the vibratory stimuli. I will be experimenting with different woods and technologies to ensure accessible and effective design. The sound will not be very audible in the air, but will be most noticeable when leaning against the wood panels, creating a very intimate and introspective experience. |
Visitors will be invited to pick up a ceramic leaf and get to know each species, as a sort of tactile herbarium.
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The leaves may float and clink together in pools of water, similar to Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's "clinamen".
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I will interview 10-12 story-carriers (individually and in small groups) and support the creation of their multimedia expressions by collaboratively developing multitrack, sound-based narratives and soundscapes. Initial prompts will include themes such as afforestation, seed collection, urban forestry, Indigenous forest management, memory-place-diaspora, and climate change, with an emphasis on amplifying racialized and queer voices. The resulting sound can then be routed to different transducers and exciters (small electronics that attach to the wooden sculptures and turn the wooden pieces into resonant bodies, i.e., speakers), offering the public an intimate yet collective multisensory experience. This installation aims to deepen relationships with forests and those who care for them.
This project is important because public perception of forests often centres on notions of control, extraction, or anthropogenic utility. I aim to decenter large-scale industrial relations and recenter small-scale, hyperlocal responsibility to the more-than-human, grounded in ethics of interrelation and reciprocity. This project aims to counter historical colonialist approaches to forest management and to break down boundaries between the white cube gallery and the natural forest, as well as between institutional authority and community voices. Forests operate as an index of social and environmental change and memory. Sound art offers a resonant entry point for ethical story sharing about our relationship with forests, with the potential to foster empathetic listening.
This project is supported in part by the Howl Experience Microgrant, and is in development as part of my MA in Music and Culture, and graduate diploma in Curatorial Studies through the University of Carleton.
This project is important because public perception of forests often centres on notions of control, extraction, or anthropogenic utility. I aim to decenter large-scale industrial relations and recenter small-scale, hyperlocal responsibility to the more-than-human, grounded in ethics of interrelation and reciprocity. This project aims to counter historical colonialist approaches to forest management and to break down boundaries between the white cube gallery and the natural forest, as well as between institutional authority and community voices. Forests operate as an index of social and environmental change and memory. Sound art offers a resonant entry point for ethical story sharing about our relationship with forests, with the potential to foster empathetic listening.
This project is supported in part by the Howl Experience Microgrant, and is in development as part of my MA in Music and Culture, and graduate diploma in Curatorial Studies through the University of Carleton.
I'm grateful to two Howl Experience programs for helping educate, inform and inspire me in the development of this project.
The first, an "8-day Howl Experience in the Yukon. Learn in community with youth from across Turtle Island, while visiting the traditional territories of the Kluane First Nation, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, the White River First Nation, Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. Engage with local Elders, Knowledge Holders, language keepers, artists and researchers to deepen your understanding of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, climate change, ReconciliAction, community building and personal resilience. Get inspired and find your voice (howl?) by truly connecting to place through land and community-centred learning, all through a relationship-based and Two-Eyed Seeing approach." (https://www.experiencehowl.com/yukon)
The first, an "8-day Howl Experience in the Yukon. Learn in community with youth from across Turtle Island, while visiting the traditional territories of the Kluane First Nation, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, the White River First Nation, Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. Engage with local Elders, Knowledge Holders, language keepers, artists and researchers to deepen your understanding of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, climate change, ReconciliAction, community building and personal resilience. Get inspired and find your voice (howl?) by truly connecting to place through land and community-centred learning, all through a relationship-based and Two-Eyed Seeing approach." (https://www.experiencehowl.com/yukon)
The second, "Healing Hemlocks, is a 6-day Howl Exploration developed by Howl in partnership with Ulnooweg Education Centre. Open to youth aged 17 to 35, Healing Hemlocks is a journey of community-led conservation and land-based learning, offering a unique experience to work alongside Indigenous knowledge holders, researchers, and community members to participate in an Indigenous-led treatment of one of the last remaining old-growth Hemlock forests in Nova Scotia, which is under threat due to the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid. In a cohort of eighteen, your exploration will begin at Asitu’lisk (ah-see-dew-lisk), a lodge and gathering place surrounded by 200-acres of ancient forest and waterways, located in Mi’kma’ki on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. The exploration will also include a visit to trails and pristine beaches of Kejimkujik National Park Seaside, just an hour down the road." (https://www.experiencehowl.com/healinghemlocks)
