Sound Installation (2022)

A collection of water sounds performed by Thea Rossen were transformed and transmitted throughout the reverberant gallery space. The exhibition, Strangers on the Shore  drew upon “coastal narratives of shipwreck, survival, coastal trade, social contact, indigenous knowledge of country..” in its presentation of a “cross cultural encounters on the Western Australian coastline between First Nations peoples and Macassan and Chinese traders and European shipwreck survivors.”

My installation was an effort to embed this within an ocean of small sounds, drawing guests to smaller corners of the gallery with longer, sustained water sourced tones. The tail-end of was designed to transfer into Tan Dun’s Water Concerto, staged by the Thea Rossen of the Ad Lib Collective. The audience was seated and the entire installation sound world collapsed into the piano, equipped with transducers, in response to Thea’s opening improvisation.