Writing
Sound Art for the Ecological Turn
What can sound art contribute to the ecological turn? When the Taiwanese sound artist Huichun Yang described her process as getting to know the entire life of the tree that became her instrument, she had my attention. The entire creative arc of her process is rooted in reverence toward materials. Yang selects the wood, sculpts it into an arbrosan—an instrument first introduced to the world in 1996—and plays it by directly sensing its surface with her hands, using gestures that evoke repair and tending.
A Lab for Listening, Visualizing Sound, and Collective Resonance at Fall River MoCA, for the Boston Art Review
Interview with El Putnam
I worked with the artist-philosopher EL Putnam when she had a solo exhibition at Emerson Contemporary in 2023. This conversation, published in the IDSVA student newsletter, is about her new body of work in collaboration with the celebrated, subversive novelist Mike McCormack. Putnam and McCormack are creating moving image art in response to how Ireland—specifically the coast around Galway—is plundered for corporate gain, while the local residents find their livelihoods and resources in peril.
This impressive exhibition provided me an opportunity to see artists I hadn’t yet know, such as Maria Gaspar, and artists I’ve known and loved for years, including Martin Wong. Activism and aesthetics beautifully complement each other here.
In this exhibition, I especially loved getting to know the artwork of Andrea Chung, whose installation whispered to visitors under a starry, seascape at night, and Josh T. Franco, whose installation was, as I put it “refreshingly disruptive.”