SoundFjord | Duncan Whitley | Sbarbi's Arrow

  • Type: event
  • Location: SoundFjord, Unit 3b - Studio 28, 28 Lawrence Road, LONDON, N15 4ER, GB
  • Starts: Mar 22 2013 at 2:00PM
  • outbound link ↱
Duncan Whitley | Sbarbi's Arrow
Exhibition: Friday 22 March - Sunday 21 April 2013 | Thursday - Sunday 2-6pm
Late Opening: Thursdays | 6-8pm | Other times by informal appointment
Opening: Thursday 21 March 2013 | 7-9pm | RSVP
Associated events programme: 23 March - 22 April 2013

SoundFjord is delighted to announce its inaugural commission, Sbarbi's Arrow, an exhibition by Duncan Whitley, produced specifically for SoundFjord’s gallery space. Themes within Whitley’s work will be developed through a full programme of events taking place along side the exhibition.

Sbarbi's Arrow is the first major creative output of Whitley's study of the saeta flamenca, a form of flamenco prayer, sung to the religious images of the Catholic Easter processions in Andalucia. The exhibition has been commissioned to coincide with the movable feast of Lent and Easter.

The title refers to an 1880 text by José María Sbarbi in which he describes the saeta as "a brief, fervent spiritual maxim, capable of producing in the mind an impression similar to that caused in the body by the wound from an arrow… capable, not of riddling the heart of the most hardened or indifferent sinner with arrows, but of giving a dead man gooseflesh." Whitley searches for traces of Sbarbi's metaphorical arrow within his self-reflexive investigations in contemporary ethnography, extending the metaphor from flamenco song to processes of recording, memory and playback.

During the celebrations, Whitley will undertake further fieldwork in Seville. By sending back images and text from 'the field' to the gallery space (which will be available for the public to peruse), Whitley will attempt to create a flow of ideas between the installed gallery work – a new video animation (duration: 23:00) by the artist, in which sound and space characteristically play a driving force – its moving images and sounds, and contemporaneously collected images, and texts.

Whitley's work in 'sensuous ethnography', explores territories between ethnographic filmmaking, sound installation and soundscape. His investigations are complex, drawing on numerous themes, including: the notion of performer and performance space or context; the differences between human and the recorded voice; a sense of belonging and community; the documentation and contextualisation of ethnographic practices through a variety of media and curatorial methodologies.
The exhibition is complemented by a selection of Whitley’s sound works made available on SoundFjord’s online exhibition platform, ‘Listening Post’, as well as a programme of events that has emerged from themes pertinent to the commissioned work. Running parallel to the exhibition, this diverse programme features talks, presentations, film screenings, a workshop with field walk and a live sound art and field recording-based performance. SoundFjord is delighted to host a number of respected guest practitioners, researchers, and specialists including Martin Clarke, Angus Carlyle, Noel Lobley, Rosalind Fowler, Jez riley French, Ian Rawes, Doc Rowe, Emmanuel Spinelli, David Toop, and John Wynne as participants.

For information on events click: http://www.soundfjord.org/eventsperformance.htm. All events are free to attend, however booking is essential.

This project has been made possible with the support of the Arts Council England http://www.artscouncil.org.uk