Prelude/Requiem

The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, ON. May 13 - August 27, 2023

Curated by Megan Kammerer

Prelude/Requiem positions itself at both extremes of the human life cycle. Built upon songs for lulling infants to sleep or easing passage into a final resting place, this immersive sound installation uses multichannel audio and light to encourage introspection across oral cultures.

Prelude/Requiem emerges from a twelve-year research practice in which I collected audio recordings made during encounters with family members, fellow creatives, migrant youth, newcomers, travellers, and friends. Some were professional musicians, but most were not. A fifteen-year-old Nigerian refugee shares melodies from home while displaced in Berlin. A new mother sings Bulgarian lullabies to her unborn child. An aging Holocaust survivor recalls Hebrew cradle songs with assistance from his wife.

Fragments of Manuel Cardosa’s 1624 polyphonic Requiem are added to layers of sighs, whispers, and drums. They signal the passage of time—a breath, a movement, or a procession. Every fragment is a capsule of connection. Its inflections preserve the sensitivity, vulnerability, and generosity of each encounter to celebrate the power of aural gathering. 

Installed in the VAC’s sunlit Loft Gallery, Prelude/Requiem became a sheltered listening space for reflection on how our individual and shared experiences overlap. Encouraging introspection and remembrance, visitors were immersed in sounds that console us, and that commemorate the aural stories that ease us through fundamental transitions.