We’re delighted to announce a partnership with Primary in Nottingham and Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridge to bring the work of British artist Emma Smith to the three cities.
The tour will include an exhibition of Smith’s work 5Hz at Primary, Nottingham, Fri 30 Nov 2018 – Sat 9 Feb 2019; 5Hz and Euphonia at HOME, Manchester, Sat 6 Apr 2019 – Sun 19 May 2019; and a live performance at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge on 18 May, 2019.
The partnership is the result of a successful bid to Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring Fund and will enable the venues to connect with community groups through workshops with the artist, both in venue and in the community.
5Hz is a sound installation centred around the invention of a new singing language designed to strengthen social connections. Through a year long research process examining psychological and neurological responses to the human voice, Smith created the 5Hz language, comprising a set of sounds that transcend language barriers. Visitors to the exhibition can learn the language and begin using it within 15 minutes.
Leading on from 5Hz, April 2018 saw the premiere of Smith’s latest work Euphonia at Liverpool’s Bluecoat, an ambitious new sound installation based on the musicality of social interactions. Developed through public experiments and workshops with world experts in music, psychology and the brain, contributors to the work include Bluecoat regulars, Liverpool’s homelessness and marginalisation group Choir With No Name and youth theatre group 20 Stories High.
“HOME is delighted to be working in tandem with Primary and Wysing Arts Centre to maximise audience outreach and engagement as a result of a strategic touring award from Arts Council England. Emma’s current focus upon the evolution of language and its role in the formation and simultaneous exclusion of social groups feels especially prescient as we explore alternative means by which barriers to communication are challenged and subverted.” – Bren O’Callaghan, Senior Producer Visual Art here at HOME.
“Human relationship is at the core of my practice – the ways in which we relate and interact and how we might better understand the extraordinary and complex ways through which we come to exist together. This work reveals the musical nature of human conversation – an ancient practice embedded in our subconscious through which, while consciously chatting with one another, we are magically and subconsciously making music.” – Artist Emma Smith.
Emma Smith: 5Hz & Euphonia will be at HOME Sat 6 Apr 2019 – Sun 19 May 2019.