Weaving chant, tracing home
Jul 15, 11:22 AM
"The history of the Tabernacle's transformation from a church into a multicultural hub has inspired my creation. In Taiwan, temples also hold significant importance as gathering places, serving as focal points for communal and spiritual activities. As a multicultural island country with a long historical tradition of immigration since the 17th century, Taiwan has witnessed waves of people arriving from various places. Those who crossed the sea to Taiwan brought with them their local beliefs, which took root and flourished in this dynamic and diverse environment.
"Reflecting on my multiple moving experiences, I no longer have the opportunity to return to my old homes. However, the temples near my old homes still stand. They were the spiritual support for my family while we lived there. I revisited temples where I had worshipped throughout my life, capturing field recordings both inside and outside these sacred spaces. The distances between my homes and the temples became reference coordinates for composition.
"During the process of collecting sounds, an unexpected coincidence occurred. One of the temples was undergoing renovation, and the sounds of construction intertwined with the monks' evening chants. The repetitive rhythm of human striking the wooden fish resonated with the flowing industrial machine noise, as if everything was in a state of becoming, with the space encompassing all.
"I proportionally stretched the field recording from the Migration Sounds archive based on the distance between the UK and Taiwan. Since leaving the UK in 2020 due to the pandemic, memories of living in London have become distant and vague. As I collaged the recordings with those I collected in Taiwan, the layered percussive rhythms turned into a woven chant, retracing the memories of home."
Notting Hill Tabernacle reimagined by Iris Chun-Tzu Chang.
Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.
For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration
IMAGE: Chris Wood, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
"Reflecting on my multiple moving experiences, I no longer have the opportunity to return to my old homes. However, the temples near my old homes still stand. They were the spiritual support for my family while we lived there. I revisited temples where I had worshipped throughout my life, capturing field recordings both inside and outside these sacred spaces. The distances between my homes and the temples became reference coordinates for composition.
"During the process of collecting sounds, an unexpected coincidence occurred. One of the temples was undergoing renovation, and the sounds of construction intertwined with the monks' evening chants. The repetitive rhythm of human striking the wooden fish resonated with the flowing industrial machine noise, as if everything was in a state of becoming, with the space encompassing all.
"I proportionally stretched the field recording from the Migration Sounds archive based on the distance between the UK and Taiwan. Since leaving the UK in 2020 due to the pandemic, memories of living in London have become distant and vague. As I collaged the recordings with those I collected in Taiwan, the layered percussive rhythms turned into a woven chant, retracing the memories of home."
Notting Hill Tabernacle reimagined by Iris Chun-Tzu Chang.
Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.
For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration
IMAGE: Chris Wood, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons