polar soundings (2025) by Karen Power
8.2 channel sound installation containing a composed duet for viola + environment
Opening times:
Fri 24 Oct: 10am-5pm
Sat 25 Oct: 10am-7pm
polar soundings is a multifaceted concept that takes the shape as both a standalone multichannel sound installation and as a solo viola + environment composition composed for Katherine Wren. Like much of Karen’s recent work integrating field recordings into an artistic context, this multilayered and open structure emulates the aliveness of its subject matter; the Antarctic and Arctic Poles.
Between 2013 - 2024 Karen completed a personal sonic pole-to-pole journey, where she listened and recorded all found life above, inside and deep below the ice. The soundscape for this work is built entirely of these audible and inaudible field recordings, which at times are enhanced, edited and remixed, but never beyond a point of recognition.
polar soundings is a climate artwork, which builds upon Pauline Oliveros’s concept of listening as activism, which aims to increase empathy and connection with the climate emergency by creating space for these two desserts to sound in their own language and be appreciated in all of their uniqueness, beauty, fragility and wildness. The viola and Katherine Wren’s uniquely diverse musical background are centrally placed within this composition and offer an endless rainbow of characters, embouchures, techniques and styles, as she lets the polar soundscapes change the way she and our audiences listen to these giant and remote locations.
Based on Karen’s ongoing development of using aural scores and parts as alternative methods of communicating real-world sounds within musical contexts, polar soundings is composed with collaborative and flexible elements, allowing Katherine to respond to the uniqueness of this performance space and to create a more conversational framework, that is built on active listening between performer, environment and audience. Karen and Katherine spent valuable time in residence, where they devised both flexible and fixed materials in response to the ice.
