Last January, London-based sound designer Yuri Suzuki’s Sound of the Earth was exhibited in Dallas Museum of Art’s Speechless exhibition. In a dimly lit room, visitors to the exhibition could press their ears to a black globe (or embrace it as I did on my visit) and listen to sounds from around the world. Now the DMA, in collaboration with Suzuki, has announced a new digital collaboration titled: Sound of the Earth: The Pandemic Chapter, which launches online Monday, May 4.
Yuri Suzuki, Sounds of the Earth Chapter 2
The crowdsourced archive of sounds will be captured from around the world via an open submission portal on the museum’s website during the COVID-19 pandemic, to be integrated into Chapter 2.
Suzuki’s new work extends the life and vision of the original piece by inviting participants to submit their own sound experiences, weather it is cooking dinner at home, the sounds from a window, or while connecting with loved ones. The sounds will then be rendered on a virtual edition of the globe, charting locations from where the sounds were submitted.
“In this moment of tremendous change and uncertainty, we wanted to create an open platform for people to express themselves and to capture our shared experience of the fleeting moments around us during this period,” says Sarah Schleuning, the museum’s Interim Chief Curator and The Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design. “Through our collective observations and the simple act of listening, we hope to provide participants with a moment of global shared empathy and a means of connection.”
For more information on the DMA and Sounds of the Earth: The Pandemic Chapter, please visit the museum’s website here.
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Sound of the Earth: The Pandemic Chapter is part of the Museum’s #DMAatHome series of online offerings, including interactive virtual tours of the exhibitions speechless: different by design, Flores Mexicanas, and For a Dreamer of Houses; do-it-yourself art-making projects; behind-the-scenes videos, stories, and Q&As with curators and Museum staff; and online access to the DMA’s complete collection.
