Everywhere We Are is the Farthest Place, an iterative composition whose origins began on an Arctic expedition above the 78th Parallel in Svalbard (halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole), where Mary Edwards made field recordings of geological/oceanographic activity —vibroacoustic natural events—iceberg torrents, calving glaciers, whale song and converging subterranean rivers of the meltwater channel—then reimagined as an ode rather than an elegy intended to provide access for all by “de-centralizing the centered and un-othering the others.” The composite soundscape takes us to the outer space that resembles its earthly NASA Terrestrial Analog Site of the Svalbard Arctic desert, and lands us back down to praise our natural surroundings and elemental sensuality— right now— in the face of rapid change.
Something to (Be)Hold
Large-scale site-specific installation encompassing a five-part series of meditative, environmental sound walks intended to be listened to in the landscape surrounding the Grimshaw-Gudewicz gallery in Fall River, MA. The public work premiered in 2021 with Edwards' mid-career retrospective survey of environmental compositions (2011-2021).
What does “place” sound like when it, upon first impression, seems so familiar that one may bypass their imagination for the ordinary?
The locations around the gallery can serve as portals, or an impetus to possibility, that what we subconsciously navigate in our everyday patterns can be transformative to our encounter and expectations if we pace ourselves and listen. You will discover there is no actual silence or stillness afterwards. You may, through engagement, eventually find music in nature, and beauty in between the complexities and unanswered spaces.
What about the sound of time? Does it render the momentary or seemingly endless passage whose common denominator is ominous discord? Or does it gleam with consonant brightness toward the future? Do we hear or resonate differently when we revisit a place after a period of absence? Does the place itself repopulate with resounding motions other than our own?
The five soundtracks you hear draw from the material form, and are an extension of a relationship to the natural world, and the lesser known, but no less important histories that have unfolded in these spaces through which you are walking. The elemental sounds or voices used are not designed to elicit disquietude, but to evoke a sense of remembrance, as well as nature’s reclamation of these discrete, yet interrelated spaces—each being, at once, vast and intimate.
Something to (Be)Hold premiered on September 23, 2021 at the Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery, Fall River, MA.
Soundtrack (by location):
1. The Source of Our Awakening (The Culvert)
2. The Content Within (The Reflection Basin)
3. Liberty of the Possible (The Grove)
4. A Reason for the Sea (The Causeway)
5. Make it Here (The Pond)
per/severance
The 2.7 mile-long Quequechan River, once the centerpiece of the 19th Century Fall River, Massachusetts textile industry, has since been partially obscured by the mills built in that era, as well as tragedies and initiatives occurring throughout the 20th and early 21st Centuries. Per/severance implies both a tenacity and a detachment evidenced by the predicament of the river. Its memory and “voice” are represented by a collection of subtle sounds: its fluid origins ranging from a purely ecological juncture of its most natural state prior to industrialization, to a human-altered waterscape; Mary Edwards spent three consecutive seasons listening to the Quequechan River and its sources, across southern New England. She came to Fall River several times to study the river, to understand its relationship to the city, and to find the remaining places where it can still be seen, and heard.
On Mary Edwards’ first field recording visit, the river itself was frozen in sections, all throughout the Winter, audibly constrained, as if it were in a bottomless slumber. In a matter of months, it had gone from a poignantly dreamy tone to a bright and crisp succession of unencumbered waves, much like the Atlantic Ocean and the interconnecting ponds and bay. On a 14-minute timeline, she imagined this flow of water to contain the groans of the Paleozoic Plate Tectonics and early marine lifeforms, of distant contrapuntal Siren-inspired choruses alternating between alluring resonance and foreboding dissonance; and faint reverberations that hearken to the height and decline of the mills and the vision to “daylight” the falls once again. This sound installation is evocative of the memories that the water still carries, and the conversation it would have if someone were there to listen.
What are the parallels between a gentle rainstorm and a NASA rocket launch in the distance? A whisper in your ear and the crashing of ocean waves, or the beating of a drum and your own heartbeat when all else appears silent? What do we know what to listen for, and how do we describe these sounds to others? How does the practice of deeper listening raise our awareness to soundscape ecology, our compassion, or stewardship and healing of each other and the wellness of the environment? In Conservation/Conversation, 2022 ACA Soundscape Field Station Artist-In-Residence Mary Edwards explores the distinctive habitats and soundscape ecology of Apollo Beach in this audio companion to her poetic essay and a free verse narrative account of the collaboration of visitors to Canaveral National Seashore who participated in her interactive and real-time exhibition.
The Call in the Limitless Space comprises a collection of short, recorded reflections from people in the Wa Na Wari community who reflect on themes of spatial reclamation, Black Joy and belonging, specifically to their ancestral lineage or connection to Seattle's Historic Central District. Composer and sound artist Mary Edwards designed a soundscape with the incorporated recordings to be digitally ported into a vintage telephone booth which serves as a permanent, interactive installation for Wa Na Wari. The stand-alone soundscape was contributed for listening components of the ASAP/14: Arts of Fugitivity Conference.
As part of her process, Edwards facilitated a Soundwalk in the Historic Central District where participants engaged in what was, at once, an ecological practice, a method of inquiry, a call to action, and a guided meditation on reclaiming natural and architectural spaces through resonant humming and a call-and-response of place-naming as an invocation, helping to give a voice and harmonic convergence to something that is already there, yet calls for “unearthing.” She successively conducted a workshop where participants’ sense of recollection and restoration were synthesized into The Call in the Limitless Space II, a text score drawn from this deep, active listening.
[The Intimate Immensity Project]
Tiny Concertina-fold books, as with any size, are like portals to the imagination. What it would be like to recreate certain natural events by visualizing the sonic immensity of calving glaciers, sea torrents, arboreal form, and range migration of trees in intimate environmental drawings, paintings and graphic scores that capture sound data as vibrational phenomena?
Four Pageant Motifs for Ida B Wells is a score for a theatrical performance that tells the story the posthumous Pulitzer Prize Award winning journalist and founding member of the NAACP, by moving through major events of her life to include her lifelong crusade against lynchings and inequities. Directed by David Poole (The Collective Face Theatre Ensemble), book by Carolyn Nur Wistrand. Premiered in 2022 for the 33rd Annual Savannah Black Heritage Festival. Click to listen.