LIVESTREAM | SOUNDbath

PROJECT:

Taking place along qathet waterways, LiveStream | Soundbath is a progression of work and activities evolving from lived experience in the qathet area. Planned to be launched and tested as part of Cultural Adaptations: Radical Reimagining symposium and exhibition at the qathet public gallery, the project includes video and audio installation, imagining and exploring place based environmental change.

The first collective wading event will take place Sept 24, 2021 at Teeskwat, at the river access, preceded and followed by a series of talks and engagement sessions around local waterways.

RESEARCH:

Through video/audio collection, water methodology discussions, landwalks, collective wading and poetic responses, LiveStream | SoundBath invites participants to consider the life of waterways and how they have evolved over time. Engagement activities will be located alongside local waterways and riparian corridors, foregrounding the environmental and cultural resonance of these sites. The installation will consist of a 12 channel live fed video stream of natural waterways looped with dissonant audio soundscape. The artist team is interested in research collection of playing back water sounds as a form of sonic enrichment into places that have experienced dramatic human caused change.

We are losing sounds through climate change, and the artists are trying to collect, record and play back the sounds into the places where they would have once been. This “playing places” is an experiment in which the sounds of healthy ecosystems (in this case waterways) are played into degraded areas in order to attract life back into them.

returning language, stories, and sounds.

INSTALLATION:

A place specific installation will depict versions on the place where it is shown, specifically the Alberni and Joyce Street intersection, where the public library and art centre building are now located. Lying in the middle of the city - creeks, and perhaps waterfalls, would have once run downslope through lush temperate rainforest. Now diverted and flowing through residential neighbourhoods, parks, commercial areas, box stores, parking lots and over/under roads, these waterways eventually enter the sea at various points. 

Through waterflow and sedimentation, these waterways have been shaping our collective spaces since time immemorial - wearing down soil and rock while carrying nutrients to the river flora and fauna that in turn provide life and stability to the riverbanks. These waterways have been shaped by dams, erosion, construction, waste, power generation, recreation, farming, forestry, blackberries and ivy.