Soul Sounds: Working with communities to find their voice to reach, inform and touch
A Masterclass with Sarah Yu and Mayu Kanamori, 2015 IAS Artists-in-Residence
Date: 29 September
Time: 10am – Noon
Venue: Institute of Advanced Studies, UWA
Cost: Free, but RSVP essential by 22 September.
Registrations: http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/masterclass/soulsounds
Sound is a very intimate medium. When we close our eyes and listen deeply to someone, we can begin to open our heart so that the stories we hear seep into our souls, beyond just their words.
Sarah Yu and Mayu Kanamori’s audio work bring together multiple voices to tell stories of people and communities. They use interviews and oral histories to inform tourists, museum visitors and audiences, but what they produce reaches beyond the traditional confines of interpretive documentation. Instead, their work guides listeners from the culturally specific stories to the universal; fostering a sense of connection to the “other” through a deeper and shared sense of understanding of what it means to be a human being; and at the same time galvanise the community of story tellers to remember in its story telling, what is at core to their being.
Discussing several of the projects they have worked on together and individually, they draw on the cultural values of the communities they work with and the engagement of younger Aboriginal emerging curators as an integral part of their work.
Other topics of discussion will include how values of respect and sensitivity in allowing the natural flows between the storytellers, their stories and its interpreters influence processes and outcomes; and how to remain focused on the needs of the project whilst at the same time allowing complex and nuanced ways of storytelling, practical interviewing and editing skills, protocols of copyright practices, follow-up with the interviewees, and ways of understanding the heart of the story and its teller to create informative, emotive and meaningful stories that could provide gateways to positive social change.
Participants are encouraged to bring their oral history and or audio story telling projects for group discussions.