MARYSE GOUDREAU | SOUND CREATION

Opening reception : Friday, May 19, 2023 ‑ 5 pm

From May 1st to May 18th 2023, Sporobole is pleased to welcome Maryse Goudreau for a creation residency for the sound window: 16 loudspeakers integrated into the façade of Sporobole’s building.

COWBELLS FOR WHALES

Defined as the bell put on the neck of a domestic animal to be able to locate it, the bell is at the base of a contemplative multichannel sound installation project of Maryse Goudreau. With her artistic experimentation, the artist analyzes the effects of a bell hung on the neck of a whale. The idea may seem laughable; however, in light of the artist’s anthropological work and her documentary play on the conquest of the beluga whale, she ultimately reveals all the absurd ideas that the political world has been able to conjure that trouble the idea of cohabitation between humans and mammals. 

At a time when many whale populations are greatly affected by maritime traffic, much discussion and experimentation is underway to create not only traffic corridors, but also naval detection tools to avoid entanglements and collisions. The artist’s multi-channel sound composition of the bell, –  with its chimes moved by sea winds and whale blasts, is both an ode to the fragility of giants and a system of markers challenging us to refocus. Evoking the “new age” trend, the project is elaborated as a time to catch one’s breath to the songs of the whales. These evoke waves that shape the musical language of the installation by relying on spatial movements, on echo and on mixing processes with vibratory dynamics.

Maryse Goudreau’s sound piece is an extension of her reflection on rescue and human/whale cohabitation at the heart of the youth exhibition In the Eye of the Beluga currently on view at the Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University.

Broadcast: May 19 to June 18, 2023 as part of the INTENSIVE PROGRAM | SOUND WINDOW

For the occasion, In the Belly of the Whale (2019), an immersive and sound work by Maryse Goudreau, will be presented in the gallery from May 19 to 21, 2023, inclusive.

The work offers an immersive sound and audio-tactile experience. It reproduces the sensations of underwater diving and the feeling of the waves emitted by belugas. Accompanied by a narration, the device creates the impression that not only our heartbeat is amplified, but also that it gradually transforms and becomes part of a larger heartbeat which resonates with the voices of a group of belugas in a nursery.