A captivating and thought-provoking sound and art installation is heading to The Piece Hall.
Created by music producer and internationally renowned sound artist Martyn Ware, composer Gabriel Ware, and immersive storytellers Oscar Blustin and Anna Söderblom, It’s Always Ourselves We Find In The Sea explores how the power of water binds all of humanity together.
Kindly sponsored by Monitor Audio the experience offers a meditative sound journey in an atmospheric setting, lasting roughly 30 minutes.
Martyn Ware said: “We invite visitors to enjoy a moment of contemplation and reflection in an oasis of calm. The climate crisis is one of the biggest threats to our planet right now, and thinking about it can create fear and anxiety that leads to paralysis; we designed ‘It’s Always Ourselves’ to remind each other that as well as a potential source of danger, water is essential to life on earth, infinitely precious to every living creature today and to every human culture that has ever existed.
“The installation asks us to look beyond our framings of division to understand that it’s only by viewing ourselves as part of a planet-wide ecosystem, culturally as well as geographically, that we can begin to act as responsible stewards of our world with a collective response in the face of the rising seas.”
The exhibition opens at The Gallery on the top floor of the west side of The Piece Hall on Friday 4 April and runs until Saturday 4 May.
CEO of The Piece Hall Trust Nicky Chance-Thompson MBE DL said: “I’m so pleased to welcome Martyn back to The Piece Hall with another powerful exhibition drawing attention to an issue we all need to focus on, and I’m proud we are once again able to host a show of this calibre free of charge to the public.
“We’re incredibly fortunate he’s chosen to exhibit here in Halifax after shows in Venice and London and it’s the perfect way to celebrate and reflect on our year of culture in Calderdale.”
The installation’s immersive soundscape has been created using Martyn’s Illustrious Company specialist ambisonic 3D sound technology.
The company was founded with Vince Clarke (Erasure) in 2000, to develop new forms of spatialised sound composition using their unique 3D Audioscape immersive surround sound technology. ‘It’s Always Ourselves We Find In The Sea’ is the latest in a series of over 80 international 3D sound installations that Illustrious has created and is Martyn’s second exhibition at The Piece Hall.
This remarkable new experiential installation premiered in Venice in 2023 at the Magazzino Gallery of Palazzo Contarini Polignac, last May, before being displayed at the Saatchi Gallery in London last autumn as part of FOCUS Art Fair.
Listeners experience the sound through Monitor Audio’s Silver 300 7G and Silver AMS Dolby Atmos Enabled speakers.
It’s Always Ourselves We Find In The Sea invites visitors into a contemplative space, a quiet, peaceful temple to water, within which the soundscape exists. Listeners enter and explore the space in their own time, letting the sounds wash over them, experiencing the stories and musical motifs as they build and gather then subside like the tide.