EVENT: Through a Window: Rain Or Shine Saturdays #1: Listening From One Place to Another
Denise Ryner | july 28, 2015
On a cloudy but warm afternoon in July about 20 people met at the Audain Gallery where they joined Jenni Schine and Russell Wallace on a guided sound walk.
For about an hour our group silently wound its way through SFU and the Woodward’s complex, along Pender, East Hastings and 40+ stories above the city at 128 West Cordova Street.
Jenni gave a brief introduction to soundwalks and active listening. Russell shared some of his personal observations and recollections about growing up around East Hastings Street. He pointed out the link between the development of the neighbourhoods encompassing Hastings and Pender Streets and Vancouver’s Chinese and First Nations communities who established close commercial and social connections to thrive despite the discrimination that both groups faced. We were asked to think about where we encountered various categories of sounds, including natural sounds and urban sounds. And then we quietly set off.
Fountains, staircases, elevators, glass overpasses, record shops, alleyways, pianos, walled gardens and rooftop lookouts….
At the end of the walk while overlooking the city, Russell described how the role of sound and vibrations in Coast Salish cosmology establishes that power flows upwards from below and could not be interrupted by the layers of concrete and glass that we found ourselves standing on. Our discussion then turned to the ways that the afternoon’s shifting soundscapes marked both our passage through place and the passage of place through time.
For more information on Through a Window: Visual Art and SFU 1965–2015 click here.