A journal is a dialogue with time. This journal contains Keywords/notes from the morning sessions, a sound score in response to the week, then poetical writings inspired by the music. Some of this is cryptic, but all of it is feeling. Fundamentally this week was about curation, and understanding this from a personal space. What I have written is a journal after all. Journals can be private, but in this case, I’ve chosen to make a journal personal yet shareable. I hope you can find some interest from this, albeit the exercises, and potentially the music.
Is curation at its core about bringing people/cultures/elements into proximity with each other, with an ability to make junctions in which different elements touch? Providing maps for artists and laymen to continue to pursuit of a theme/topic/idea?
Perhaps.
45 in 5. Here I am, waiting to fly from New York to Amsterdam. You never know when ideas come, but when they do, seize the moment. The task was to blend this 45-minute ambient recording (essentially my journey through an airport) with the actual song dancing in my “inner ears”, and create a 5-minute track. While making, I think about what it means to collect, and what it means to present. I think about gates, overflows & border control. All thoughts are symbolic of the current journey, and (God willing) the ones to come.
Though some airlines make flight safety more aye catching, we still find it hard to listen. The baby cries in an instant, and I wonder if we share the same newness. Definitely not the same pain. It’s just all so new for them. I think of the carry-on luggage stowed above… and what it means to be in airplane mode…then funnels these thoughts into a composition.
Monday’s positioning. A space of orientation. If space had a sound, I don’t think it would be far off from this. Fuzzy filters rumbling around the ears, Arp like sounds reaching for higher frequencies in headspaces. If NYC to AMS is about being in the plane, then Monday’s positioning is about what’s happening outside, on one’s journey to flight. I meditate on positionality and see a man (maybe me) groaning those exact words from afar, almost questioning the odds, questioning where one stands… or more aptly, how one soars? And at what expense? This day we are encouraged to think about our positionality from within the spaces from which we work, and maybe how we articulate ourselves to others. How this informs our acts of collections is a question I’m still busy with… as I collect quotes from speakers, and sounds from my small perspective of Rotterdam, a song emerges. And as I reflect on today, so does this meditation on positionality:
Find a position, be still & take 3 deep breaths.
Imagine yourself in a plane, seeing in as much detail where you are positioned in this plane.
Imagine its ascension into the skies, and then it’s time in flight, then lastly, its decent.
Note the kind of ground you land on, this can be as wild as your imagination takes you.
Imagine what things in this image are fixed and that which things move constantly.
Repeat, but this time with the music. If you want to increase the intensity of the image, then abstract your image of the plane (for example, my body could be the plane, and I’m sitting inside this body/plane)
Krabbsund Trondheim x Concrete. Boats on the water. Ropes by the by. Lessons toward change. The walk is an ever-present gesture towards perseverance, and so it felt essential to provide a sound score including travel. The streets of Rotterdam are far from my knowledge, yet as I walk through a small handful of ‘em, I learn to accept my inexperience of the city and appreciate the sights seen.
I dream that whales sing in the water. Of course, there are no whales in Rotterdam. But in this song, perhaps there are. In this song, our protagonist enjoys walking and wading in water…they enjoy the feel of the waves coming back and forth, and that image inspires me to swim between alternative streams.
A friend. Known by name. The kick-like heartbeat palpitates and the sirens wail just at the thought of doing something alternative, at the thought of becoming penalized for mistakes. But boats sail across the water, boarding at ‘mistakes’ and arriving at ‘wrongmaderight’. Questions fly as laughter arrives around street corners adjacent to the history museum. Before the park, a building is looking at me. A reflective ‘flower pot’ shaped building showing myself in relation to the city. The joy of walks and the love of gestures provide more empathy for the personal and local. What it’s like to land in a land you know not much of? Yet anticipate much from? No answer. One observation though: Cacophonous voices make the most wonderful orchestras.
Big Buzzwords, little love for MASTERCARD. Ironically, dutch card machines aren’t ‘all-inclusive’.
It starts with a trip to the bakery. Known for the best cookies around (I can vouch for this), I opt for an all-inclusive white nut, oatmeal & Chocolate Chip. My card is declined because and I will soon learn that Mastercards aren’t favored in this part of Rotterdam. I can assure you I had £’s. Self-checking machines sing tea for two amongst diminished notes, and herein lies an adventure based on finding an atm, all for the sake of taking out cash, all for the sake of buying milk, for these ‘great’ cookies. I knew I should have asked for per diems upfront.
We reprise our motif from our first song but this time our song has more soul because we have lived longer in this land. The machine beeps and I can’t help but hear it speak to the politic of acceptance, prodding at my pessimism. They didn’t accept visa cards, and the beeps keep beeping! The low synth acts as the continuous breath which kept me alive even if I often pay little attention to its value. That breath, a hum. That hum is a vibration. That vibration, a gesture of dancing air. As if walking wasn’t enough, it appears that this song questions me about what I intend to include and what I will be committed to change. Walk. Sometimes through traffic lights.
PCR TESTEN. In Rotterdam, my love for cycling is empowered. Wheels slice through dutch streets, synths resemble smooth riding, and in comparison to London, riding looks like something people do out of joy. Cars hoot and holler in celebration of marriage (I think)… congrats. My destination appears on the left and a test begins.
(temporary) Home. The temptation of gossip is everpresent. Media speculation, youtube ads add to this addiction. To think through other thoughts which sometimes but often don’t have lasting relevance to my life often feels like a waste of time, but for the culture, it might not be. If a paradigm shift is a change in assumptions, then my most fundamental questions reside around how I address and change the practice of collection, and how this affects the act of curation. A reprise of thematic ideas, In some ways, this layered sound score is my mind, eager to stay ‘on course’ but often conflicted, making music, for the sake of clarity, for the sake of resilience, to ease the tension in the mystery of moments. To think that our paradigms are stagnant is becoming a dated thought, yet to also think that the existing paradigms were ever stagnant feels reductive. Nuance, please.
LEAVE. Do we ever not collect? Do the ears never hear? Does the deaf body not perceive vibration? Do we ever not move?
We can, however, stop curating. Can’t we? Well, maybe not if it’s your God-given call to life. But maybe so. Anywho, I come back, ready to land in an environment often hard to be content in. How ironic it is to discover arriving would be no easy feat… How ironic it is to miss my flight, how ironic it is to receive a late PCR testen. How ironic it is to know that the Eurostar would leave 15 mins after my flight, making it impossible to find an alternative. Yet finally, ironically, this would speak to the politic of shifting paradigms. That should be been a given, for aren’t irony and sincerity linked at the hip?
Some process work is smooth, but if we assume that it will always be easy to change, we are mistaken. The chance to land again feels sentimental, I haven’t been in the UK for over 2 months, and it’s been a journey. The week of this conference, I would have traveled through 3 time zones, and while that won’t be loads for some, it’s a sobering thought to think of how many words I’ll never know, and how collections may be the best way to capture that of the world I can before Leaving…for good. We all have our ticket, with an individual ‘QR’ code, which once accessed, reveals a cavernous wonder deeper than the internet. Today my friends, we leave a wonderful week thinking through curation, and I have tried to make a collection of sounds that will capture a moment. I have curated the hours of sound recorded into songs. I have brought together my art world into closer proximity with Earth, particularly Rotterdam. Who knows where that’ll go. One thing this has taught me though is that these things don’t die, they multiply. Here’s to the next work (Y)
LEAVING. Do we ever not collect? Do the ears never hear? Does the deaf body not perceive vibration? Do we ever not move?
We can, however, stop curating. Can’t we? Well, maybe not if it’s your God-given call to life. But maybe so. Anywho, I come back, ready to land in an environment often hard to be content in. How ironic it is to discover arriving would be no easy feat… How ironic it is to miss my flight, how ironic it is to receive a late PCR testen. How ironic it is to know that the Eurostar would leave 15 mins after my flight, making it impossible to find an alternative. Yet finally, ironically, this would speak to the politic of shifting paradigms. That should be been a given, for aren’t irony and sincerity linked at the hip?
Some process work is smooth, but if we assume that it will always be easy to change, we are mistaken. The chance to land again feels sentimental, I haven’t been in the UK for over 2 months, and it’s been a journey. The week of this conference, I would have traveled through 3 time zones, and while that won’t be loads for some, it’s a sobering thought to think of how many words I’ll never know, and how collections may be the best way to capture that of the world I can before Leaving…for good. We all have our ticket, with an individual ‘QR’ code, which once accessed, reveals a cavernous wonder deeper than the internet. Today my friends, we leave a wonderful week thinking through curation, and I have tried to make a collection of sounds that will capture a moment. I have curated the hours of sound recorded into songs. I have brought together my art world into closer proximity with Earth, particularly Rotterdam. Who knows where that’ll go. One thing this has taught me though is that these things don’t die, they multiply. Here’s to the next work (Y)
PCR TESTEN. In Rotterdam, my love for cycling is empowered. Wheels slice through dutch streets, synths resemble smooth riding, and in comparison to London, riding looks like something people do out of joy. Cars hoot and holler in celebration of marriage (I think)… congrats. My destination appears on the left and a test begins.
(temporary) Home. The temptation of gossip is everpresent. Media speculation, youtube ads add to this addiction. To think through other thoughts which sometimes but often don’t have lasting relevance to my life often feels like a waste of time, but for the culture, it might not be. If a paradigm shift is a change in assumptions, then my most fundamental questions reside around how I address and change the practice of collection, and how this affects the act of curation. A reprise of thematic ideas, In some ways, this layered sound score is my mind, eager to stay ‘on course’ but often conflicted, making music, for the sake of clarity, for the sake of resilience, to ease the tension in the mystery of moments. To think that our paradigms are stagnant is becoming a dated thought, yet to also think that the existing paradigms were ever stagnant feels reductive. Nuance, please.
Big Buzzwords, little love for MASTERCARD. Ironically, dutch card machines aren’t ‘all-inclusive’.
It starts with a trip to the bakery. Known for the best cookies around (I can vouch for this), I opt for an all-inclusive white nut, oatmeal & Chocolate Chip. My card is declined because and I will soon learn that Mastercards aren’t favored in this part of Rotterdam. I can assure you I had £’s. Self-checking machines sing tea for two amongst diminished notes, and herein lies an adventure based on finding an atm, all for the sake of taking out cash, all for the sake of buying milk, for these ‘great’ cookies. I knew I should have asked for per diems upfront.
We reprise our motif from our first song but this time our song has more soul because we have lived longer in this land. The machine beeps and I can’t help but hear it speak to the politic of acceptance, prodding at my pessimism. They didn’t accept visa cards, and the beeps keep beeping! The low synth acts as the continuous breath which kept me alive even if I often pay little attention to its value. That breath, a hum. That hum is a vibration. That vibration, a gesture of dancing air. As if walking wasn’t enough, it appears that this song questions me about what I intend to include and what I will be committed to change. Walk. Sometimes through traffic lights.
Wednesday 30th June 2021: Alternative approaches to curation (examples & tools)
Krabbsund Trondheim x Concrete
Krabbsund Trondheim x Concrete
Krabbsund Trondheim x Concrete. Boats on the water. Ropes by the by. Lessons toward change. The walk is an ever-present gesture towards perseverance, and so it felt essential to provide a sound score including travel. The streets of Rotterdam are far from my knowledge, yet as I walk through a small handful of ‘em, I learn to accept my inexperience of the city and appreciate the sights seen.
I dream that whales sing in the water. Of course, there are no whales in Rotterdam. But in this song, perhaps there are. In this song, our protagonist enjoys walking and wading in water…they enjoy the feel of the waves coming back and forth, and that image inspires me to swim between alternative streams. A friend. Known by name. The kick-like heartbeat palpitates and the sirens wail just at the thought of doing something alternative, at the thought of becoming penalized for mistakes. But boats sail across the water, boarding at ‘mistakes’ and arriving at ‘wrongmaderight’. Questions fly as laughter arrives around street corners adjacent to the history museum. Before the park, a building is looking at me. A reflective ‘flower pot’ shaped building showing myself in relation to the city. The joy of walks and the love of gestures provide more empathy for the personal and local. What it’s like to land in a land you know not much of? Yet anticipate much from? No answer. One observation though: Cacophonous voices make the most wonderful orchestras.
A space of orientation. If space had a sound, I don’t think it would be far off from this. Fuzzy filters rumbling around the ears, Arp like sounds reaching for higher frequencies in headspaces. If NYC to AMS is about being in the plane, then Monday’s positioning is about what’s happening outside, on one’s journey to flight. I meditate on positionality and see a man (maybe me) groaning those exact words from afar, almost questioning the odds, questioning where one stands… or more aptly, how one soars? And at what expense? This day we are encouraged to think about our positionality from within the spaces from which we work, and maybe how we articulate ourselves to others. How this informs our acts of collections is a question I’m still busy with… as I collect quotes from speakers, and sounds from my small perspective of Rotterdam, a song emerges. And as I reflect on today, so does this meditation on positionality:
Find a position, be still & take 3 deep breaths.
Imagine yourself in a plane, seeing in as much detail where you are positioned in this plane.
Imagine its ascension into the skies, and then it’s time in flight, then lastly, its decent.
Note the kind of ground you land on, this can be as wild as your imagination takes you.
Imagine what things in this image are fixed and that which things move constantly.
Repeat, but this time with the music. If you want to increase the intensity of the image, then abstract your image of the plane (for example, my body could be the plane, and I’m sitting inside this body/plane)
Our subthemes are collaboration, in/exclusion, and change.
Our teams are given the practical tasks of creating a collection of their city, discerning what, how, and why we collect our artifacts. Discerning what/who we identify as important, ad able to change our perspectives all throughout the week. To supplement the experience, we will receive input on different curatorial practices, tools, and strategies throughout online morning sessions, and spend each afternoon in our local contexts, collecting, reflecting & making. working on your collections. At the end of each day impressions of whatever we collected (words, insights, questions, photos, audio bites, video) will be shared in an online environment (to be defined) open to all, to get an inside into each other’s processes.
We knew that the proposition was to learn by doing and to push that further, I intended to learn by making. It was ok for collections to not get finished, as the process of defining a focus and framework together was more important than the end result. It is not about the collections as an end result, but about going through the process of defining a focus and a framework together, making decisions together, and learning from each other’s approaches, urgencies, and interests. The task of creating a collection together is a way to place the capacity building at the core of the activities throughout this final week of the project.
Is curation at its core about bringing people/cultures/elements into proximity with each other, with an ability to make junctions in which different elements touch? Providing maps for artists and laymen to continue to pursuit of a theme/topic/idea?
Perhaps.
Ty’s introduction
Herein lies a journal which is a response to my experience that week. I have sat with conversations over that week and built a sonic collection throughout the week, from which compositions have begun to arrive. Keywords/notes from the morning sessions, a sound score in response to the week, then poetic reflections, free-writing in direct response to the music. Some of this is cryptic, but all of it is feeling. Fundamentally this week was about curation, and understanding this from a personal space. What I have written is a journal after all. Journals can be private, but in this case, I’ve chosen to make a journal personal yet shareable. I hope you can find some interest from this, albeit the exercises, and potentially the music. Feel free to respond accordingly, and most importantly, keep on.
–on 45 in 5 —
45 in 5
45 in 5. Here I am, waiting to fly from New York to Amsterdam. You never know when ideas come, but when they do, seize the moment. The task was to blend this 45-minute ambient recording (essentially my journey through an airport) with the actual song dancing in my “inner ears”, and create a 5-minute track. While making, I think about what it means to collect, and what it means to present. I think about gates, overflows & border control. All thoughts are symbolic of the current journey, and (God willing) the ones to come.
— On NYC to AMS —
NYC to AMS
NYC to AMS. Though some airlines make flight safety more aye catching, we still find it hard to listen. The baby cries in an instant, and I wonder if we share the same newness. Definitely not the same pain. It’s just all so new for them. I think of the carry-on luggage stowed above… and what it means to be in airplane mode…then funnels these thoughts into a composition.
The REPLAY participants Eva Colpacci, Arina Dolgikh, Fleur Gaignard and Eva Supparo were able to gather at La Briqueterie for a shared time of listening to Radio Echo Box. Together, they drew a big mindmap to collect their impressions of the radio show.
The REPLAY participants Eva Colpacci, Arina Dolgikh, Fleur Gaignard and Eva Supparo were able to gather at La Briqueterie for a shared time of listening to Radio Echo Box. Together, they drew a big mindmap to collect their impressions of the radio show.
The REPLAY participants Eva Colpacci, Arina Dolgikh, Fleur Gaignard and Eva Supparo were able to gather at La Briqueterie for a shared time of listening to Radio Echo Box. They drew together a big mindmap that collects their impressions of the radio show.
The six Dancing Museum artists were supposed to meet in Vitry-sur-Seine in early April for a week’s residency within the frame of the Biennale de Danse du Val-de-Marne. Since the current situation made the meet-up impossible, La Briqueterie and the Dancing Museum team decided to create an online radio show.
For the past year, they have shared and worked together, but from a far… From Prague, Rotterdam, Nottingham, Paris, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Brussels, Pesaro and Bassano del Grappa, their geographic roots and everyday rhythms have been shaken. Like many of us, they keep in touch with their colleagues by communicating through instant messaging, in order to send each other support or ideas.
For this special moment, we had an idea to record the group’s voicemails to each other, a space where dialogue resonates and individual thoughts vibrate and reflect upon meeting. The six artists shared their feelings, their current questionings, their laughter, their pieces of music, their memories and their dance practices.
Open for several days and several nights, this voicemail transformed into a radio creation, becoming a meeting point where these six voices conducted an experiment: could the radio allow us to be together, to have a dialogue, to dance from a distance?
Bon voyage and happy listening!
With: Quim Bigas Bassart, Ingrid Berger Myhre, Masako Matsushita, Eleanor Sikorski, Tereza Ondrová and Ana Pi Realization and sound creation: Marie Pons and Pierre-Antoine Naline Production : La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne
Après avoir fait l’expérience d’écouter l’audiowalk ou balade sonore proposée par la chorégraphe Eleanor Sikorski durant la semaine de workshop à Nottingham, Fleur compose à son tour une balade sonore. Sa voix vous guide pour une exploration qui passe par le corps et l’imagination. La proposition est en anglais.
EN / After experiencing the audiowalk offered by Eleanor Sikorski during the Nottingham workshop week, Fleur – who is part of the REPLAY project within Dancing Museums – composed her own audiowalk. It is an invitation to let her voice guide you through an exploration, using body and imagination. The experience is in English.
Après avoir fait l’expérience d’écouter l’audiowalk ou balade sonore proposée par la chorégraphe Eleanor Sikorski durant la semaine de workshop à Nottingham, Eva C. compose à son tour une balade sonore ponctuée de musique, d’ambiances et de poésie. A écouter au casque et à faire de chez vous ou à l’extérieur à l’envie !
EN / After experiencing the audiowalk offered by Eleanor Sikorski during the Nottingham workshop week, Eva C. who is part of the REPLAY project within Dancing Museums, composed her own audiowalk from Paris, filled with music, atmosphere and poetry. You can have a go, listen to it with your headphones and follow Eva’s voice.
Après avoir fait l’expérience d’écouter l’audiowalk ou balade sonore proposée par la chorégraphe Eleanor Sikorski durant la semaine de workshop à Nottingham, Justine compose à son tour une balade sonore. Sa voix vous guide avec douceur pour une exploration qui passe par le corps et l’imagination.
EN / After experiencing the audiowalk offered by Eleanor Sikorski during the Nottingham workshop week, Justine – who is part of the REPLAY project within Dancing Museums – composed her own audiowalk. It is an invitation to let her voice guide you softly through an exploration, using body and imagination.
As part of the Nottingham online workshop, Eleanor Sikorski and Dance4 have curated an artist panel with mayfield brooks, Mary Pearson, Seke Chimutengwende, facilitated by Season Butler. The three artists will be in residence at Newstead Abbey – hopefully this summer – where they will discuss their choreographic research by looking at ghosts and haunted houses as a metaphor for how histories of transatlantic slavery and colonialism haunt the present.
Audiowalk in Lille, France, 9th March at 16:10 CET.
Today, all artists, partners and collaborators were invited for an audiowalk prepared by Eleanor Sikorski. Each in our own time, locality, neighbourhood, and guided by Eleanor’s voice and a soundscape / soundtrack of her choosing in our headphones, we were invited to go outside, listen and walk for twenty minutes. Here’s my impression after the experience.
Dance artist Eleanor Sikorski took us on a virtual video guided tour through Nottingham. Walking in the streets, passing historical places, statues and monuments. The film took us on a visit of historic Nottingham with a focus on The National Justice Museum, with Eleanor interviewing Andrea Hadley-Johnson, Artistic Programme Manager at The National Justice Museum. They talked about historical injustices, which still have a resonance today, the museum as an intimidating institution, trauma and actions.
Here are some words, questions and food for thought shared during the talks that followed the collective viewing of the film.
How relevant is the institution?
Can you be a Museum without walls, can you go out in the streets to share artists’ work differently?
Back to Nottingham, Acts of Social and Political Change: New Voices
FROM
just above the Arctic Circle Rotterdam Brussels Prague Freiburg Paris London Vitry-sur-Seine Barcelona Lille Bassano del Grappa Torino Slovenia Nottingham etc. etc.
The Zoom frame indicates that 39 people are online on this Monday morning 8th March. 9 countries at least are represented for this first session of the week. 3 of us are wearing a yellow jumper. 1 of us seats against a purple background. 34 women are part of this group.
CHANGE
In 2019, the opening picture of Dancing Museums showed thirty seven people smiling happily under the sun in Nottingham, celebrating the start of the project. Here we are two years later, back in Nottingham, but from home.
In the meantime, what has actually changed? Since spring 2020, the Dancing Museums workshops have been happening online, where we find ourselves together but apart. It has been a while since most of us have taken a plane, crossed a border, traveled, met with our families or friends. Museums are still closed in certain countries, as well as dance centres, and it has been several months since we have been able to go to gather at a live performance or a festival.
Some political, social and cultural shifts happened. More are expected, desired, dreaded, or needed.
So, back in Nottingham on International Women’s Day, what has moved within the frame of this project, what feels different, where is it moving as we speak?
Eleanor Sikorski, Dance4, Nottingham City Museums & Galleries & Nottingham Contemporary are proposing CHANGE as our subject for the week.
When is change possible?
How is it possible?
Can we recognise it when it happens?
asks Eleanor in her opening words, to welcome us all in this space of action and reflection.
“Au cœur du processus de création” : c’est vraiment cela que j’ai ressenti lors du partage avec l’artiste Ingrid Berger Myhre. Ingrid explore les trajets à travers le musée, elle cherche à découvrir de nouveaux trajets dans le bâtiment.
Pour cela, elle travaille autour des perspectives, cherche à savoir comment trouver de nouvelles perspectives ? Pour son travail au sein de Dancing Museum 2, Ingrid cherche plus à explorer le bâtiment que les œuvres qu’il abrite. Elle nous propose de cartographier l’espace dans lequel nous nous trouvons. Elle dit que la carte est “une partition chorégraphique, poétique sur l’espace“.
Et moi, grâce à Ingrid, dans ma chambre et à travers l’interaction en visioconférence, j’ai touché cela, le processus créatif proposé par l’artiste.
