I am very happy to announce the first installation of Unravelling/Desenredando in Arnolfini, Bristol on March 2 and 3.
Unravelling / Desenredando is a surround-sound bilingual installation (Spanish and English) featuring the voices of nine Colombian women from varied backgrounds, listening to and resonating with each others’ stories of their migratory journeys to Europe. Improvising in trios, they weave a multilayered sonic memory of intense and intimate listening, while sounding their experiences of how migration and conflict are heard through their bodies: their social spaces of interaction, the memory of conflict in their native land, and the challenges met in the countries where they now live.
The installation invites audiences to be immersed in these women’s individual experiences and find resonances in the overlaps and synchronicities, as they might also meet across universal narratives between gender, conflict and migration.
Credits
Unravelling emerged from the INTIMAL project (Marie Sklodowska Curie Individual Fellowship 2017 – 2019) awarded to the sound artist-researcher Ximena Alarcón-Díaz and is a collaboration with the Oslo-based composer and spatial audio researcher (specialising in ambisonics and wave field synthesis) Ulf A. S. Holbrook.
The installation was developed thanks to a Sound Artist Residency awarded by the IAN – Immersive Audio Network in Bath, UK in 2023. The Unravelling tour is funded by the Four Nations International Fund through Arts Council England, Arts Council Northern Ireland, Arts Council Wales, Creative Scotland and Wales Arts International, in partnership with Arnolfini – Bristol (England), the Immersive Audio Network – IAN (South West of England), My World, Centre for Creative and Cultural Industries (Bath Spa University), the Festival Internacional de la Imagen – Bogotá and Manizales (Colombia), and SARC: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Sound and Music, at the Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast, (Northern Ireland).
With special thanks to Anita Ramírez, Bruna Scott, Calu, Dr Liliana Rodríguez, Juliana, La Chiqui, Myriam Ojeda Patiño, Silvia Villalba Martínez, and Violeta Ospina Dguez, for sharing their voices and migratory journeys.
Photo used in the poster: by Sharon Stewart. Deep Listening Intensive. Project INTIMAL 2017-2019. Grån, Norway.