Hannah Wallis

Taking into consideration the 2020 theme of broadcasting at Wysing Arts Centre I spent the year extrapolating ideas around collective knowledge sharing and heightened understandings of what it means to listen in relation to my long-term sound body space time project. Expanding on current research into the vitality of the physical as a well as psychological voice in the face of sensory loss and taking into consideration Anne Karpf’s research into the overlooked and complex identity of the human voice, I am interested in the affects certain experiences have on our psychosomatic presence in the world, whereby the body is often cancelled in the spaces it inhabits.

As I began to re-engage with this research after a three month hiatus brought about by the global Covid-19 pandemic, and in response to a seismic shift in thinking that had taken place across whole sections of society, this research expanded into an investigation of how sound and sonics might effect our sense of spatialisaiton, especially when navigating complex cultural spaces.

Some of the foundational research for this can be seen via the Wysing Broadcast ‘Explore’ page when clicking this link here.

The residency culminated in the presentation of Version by Ain Bailey. Installed in three parts across Wysing’s site, the title pays tribute to the ‘version’ of a vocal reggae track. Throughout the exhibition, Bailey brings together sound and sculpture as means to expand on ideas and techniques of ‘sonic biography’, a generative methodology of sound exploration that the artist has finessed over the years. Presented with the opportunity to occupy several spaces across the site, Bailey has produced a series of works that reflect on the artist’s Jamaican heritage, albeit from the position of someone who has not yet visited the island. 

To find out more about the exhibtion visit the Wysing website by clicking this link here.