Installation: Ääni

Sat 16 + Sun 17 Nov: 11am – 4pm
Mon 18 – Thu 21 Nov: 10am – 3pm

Free event

Martina Morger (Liechtenstein, 1989), Birgit Widmer (Switzerland, 1964) & Finn O’Hare (Scotland, 1995)
Ääni UK Premiere

The ice melts. A temporary body whose mass disappears, dissolves, transforms into a fluid and merges with the earth or the air. A transformation process that also manifests itself in sounds, in Ääni, the Finnish word for voice and noise. We hear the ice speak. Its process of expansion and retraction is analogous to a sound that resounds, fades or falls silent…

At the end of 2021 Birgit Widmer initiated her research project Ääni, supported by a work grant from the by the Regional Culture Council of St Gallen (Switzerland). Widmer invited the artist Martina Morger to collaborate. As part of the project, the two have researched the content and aesthetics of ice melting and specifically the annual ice break-up in Finland. The outcome of Ääni contains a multimedia installation: the process of the transformation of a solid body into a liquid one and vice versa was set to music. Widmer and Morger’s recordings from this research period (field recordings and interviews) have been collaged by musician and sound artist Finn O’Hare to create a composition – a musical body – in the form of an immersive 4-channel sound installation. The audio collage was carefully composed with his additional instrumentation and recordings of melting ice bodies. Widmer and Morger also created three book originals, which visualise their travel research and linearly reproduce the course of streams and coastline in Finland.

Produced by hcmf// as part of The Current Climate; supported by Hinrichsen Foundation and Vaughan Williams Foundation

Ääni was supported by a work grant from the Regional Culture Council of St Gallen (Switzerland) and the SVFF (Swiss Association of Friends of Finland)