LandMarks2017/Repères2017

Composed soundscape of Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve in Collaboration with Rytha Kesselring. 

Rytha Kesselring writes, 

Weaving memories is a project related to a particular site-specific context, in relation to territory and the 150 anniversary of Canada.

​Interested in memories, traces and individual perceptions of time and space, Weaving memories is a project that archives the history, the memory and the souvenirs of a specific site trough the many different layers of its composition. In times, where high-resolution digital memories are compiled in infinitive quantities in a virtual space, we are loosing precious parts of the tangible world around us.  Responding through low-resolution and slowly produced work, Weaving Memories aims to embody the complexity of the physical world. By abstracting personal reflections of the Mingan Archipelago into woven cloth, Weaving memories reconnects us to the heritage of textiles as archived systems of embedded stories. Considering sound as part of the materiality of memory, the four-channel sound track weaves together soundscapes that reflect the processes of loom weaving and the encounters with nature and with the people of the Mingan Archipelago.  

This project is a long lasting intervention where contact to a specific site has become narration, exploration and interpretation. As woven texts, textiles are a form of archives, a tactile remembrance of space and time…

​I started a correspondence with people of Minganie by letters to get a feeling of their territory. In collaboration with Raphaëlle de Groot I had contact the a group of people and I invite them to describe their territory in from of hand written letters. In response to the letters I received I created visual interpretations in a woven form of the territory descriptions. I choose to work on a tapestry loom because it allows me to draw the imagery with the threads.

Weaving on a small tapestry loom means to make many decisions about the composition of the picture and it gives the power to select the details to conserve or to ones leave behind. This selection of information shapes the space in a very personal way. In relation to our modern archive system, weaving related to coding and reflects our digital world in a very manual and physical way. The selection of codes that the slowly produced images illustrate is a personal abstraction of the letters I received. Following the intervention I had the chance to visit the Mingan archipelago and meet a few how wrote to me.

​Considering sonic input as part of materiality and memory and my general interest in sounds and noises, leads to the collaboration with Toby Moisey, sound artist. Together we were hunting sounds during our trip to Minganie and he made an amazing soundscape for the piece. 

​As a woven archive of the intervention, the final piece is a 4 meter cloth woven on a floor loom which is tracing the timeline of the project. 

To see images for the woven work find your way to Rytha Kesselring's website. https://www.rytha-kesselring.com/weaving-memories

For archival pourposes, this did not air.