Summoning (No Words)

Summoning (No Words) is an interactive sound installation built of the female voice. The work responds to violence against women and is built from the original vocal compositions of seven Canadian female artists from different traditions and cultures. The sound experience changes as the audience moves though the exhibition space and activates motion sensors. Voices emerge, overlap, build, crescendo and recede in an ever-changing interactive composition. This sung soundscape is layered on top of a bed of whispered audio contributed by community members. This includes poems, invocations and stories. Both meditative and disturbing, theatrical and immersive, Summoning (No Words) recalls the origins of artistic practice in community-based ritual and ceremony.