IKLECTIK presents,
Unlocking, Yard Side / Garden Side
A day of listening and Q&A with the Belfast artist Raymond Watson launching his new album: A Soundscape of Sounds from the Past.
Saturday 5 October – doors 11am – start 11.30am | £5 SUGGESTED DONATION
This event is part of the series of parallel events organised in collaboration with The Engine Room 2019 Exhibition and IKLECTIK’s 5th anniversary.
Raymond Watson
Raymond Watson is helping unlock the past with his latest project, a ‘soundscape’ rhythmically created from rattling keys and banging metal – the humdrum sounds of daily life while a prisoner in Crumlin Road Prison in the 1970s… (From the interview with Gail Bell, Sounds of the past unlocked by Belfast artist and former prisoner Raymond Watson, The Irish News).
Raymond Watson said, ‘The sound recorded on this LP was created with items from The Crumlin Road Prison Belfast. ‘The Crum’ as it is known, was a Belfast prison where prisoners involved in the Irish British political conflict were held on remand. From the closed confines of a small prison cell, external sounds – keys, grills, locks, footsteps, voices, silence and noises often provided a visual picture of what was happening beyond the locked door – the origin of this ‘sound sculpture’ – hopefully the vision that you will have as a listener will be generated by you, your own confined space and your interaction with this sonic experience.
‘This sonic art grew from an immersive audio visual installation that I created in 2016 and that I first exhibited in February 2017 in the Albert and Victoria Gallery, Liverpool. The exhibition displayed hundreds of the keys for ‘the Crum’ and an audio track created with those same keys.
‘Items used to sculpt the sonic image that you are about to receive are hundreds of the actual Crumlin Road Prison keys and their brass and aluminium ID (identification) tags, a steel prison food tray, an original ‘prison made’ grappling hook (surreptitiously constructed by prisoners intending to escape), locks, grills, echoing memories and my own words. Additional instrumental music was created by my daughters Toraigh and Dara, on flute and harp, and the nature that blooms in the Glens. Whether they know it or not, both of my beautiful daughters have spent a lifetime collaborating with me on this ‘sound sculpture’ and on everything else that I have done and will do in the future.’
LP will be available to purchase on the day.
