What happens when we listen to a space with which we have previous experience, and one separated in time? How can we think of the experience elicited through this process as being precipitated by sounds laying dormant in a site?
In Spectres I, an elderly couple recall their childhood recollections of a series of monuments forged at the time to bolster the narrative of a new nation, but which have since been challenged. Relating memories separated in both time and space, and focusing on the remembered sounds of these sites, the work investigates the slippage of time and memory, through temporal and spatial transposition. The speakers, like the monuments, are always off-screen. Only the wider monument sites are visible – where they merge with the landscape, are co-opted by other agencies, and where their intended purposes become problematic or ignored.
—
See the exhibition room sheet here.