Making The Trent Valley Cabinet of Curiosities
Over the summer Siobhan worked with the group exploring river markings and designing new asemic writing and characters for the Trent. She was joined by musician Mary Keith - who shared music composed in response to rivers (by a range of different composers including for example….
She then led the group in exploring sound making in response to qualities of the River Trent and introduced the group to visual or graphic scores as a more experimental way of ‘reading’ music. The group then created and recorded sounds using the Asemic writing they had made in previous workshops.
Siobhan then used these recordings to programme a raspberry pi - which sits within the cabinet, attached to a listening and speaking device. Using the idea of ‘tin can telephone’ the listening/ speaking device are two Staffordshire made ceramic cups - featuring a river design of course!
Visitors to the cabinet will be able to speak a message to the river - and hear a response!
Siobhan McAleer and the OLGBT+ group and friends
secret messages & hidden heritages - developing a language of the river
Artist Siobhan McAleer was interested in exploring the idea of the languages of the river. Exploring markings that people may leave along the river - to send messages, give warnings, or mark places that have special meaning to them. She also explored what people may say to a river and hear while they are there - if we had a sound recording device that could capture all the sounds that had ever been heard by the Trent what sort of things would we hear?
Asemic writing and graphic scores
Raspberry Pi and Cup Telephone
This project has been commissioned by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, as part of the Trent Valley Past and Present Project. It is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery players.
Find out more about the wider project here: https://www.thetrentvalley.org.uk/projects/tvpp/
