Passaggi di tempo / The passing of time
Ethnographic collaborative sound art concert
Liminaria
Montefalcone, Italy 2016
-in collaboration with the community of Montefalcone-
In 2016 I was invited to the Liminaria artistic residency in Montefalcone, Italy by Leandro Pisano where I was appointed to perform the residency’s closing ceremony, together with Chilean artist Fernando Godoy. Montefalcone has an ageing population of 1,766 habitants and its traditions and identity are slowly becoming obsolete because of the major migration of its younger generations to larger cities and the influence of technified agriculture in their everyday life. After a couple of days of ethnographic work, we discovered the significance of the ringing of church bells in the culture of the town as well as the dominant sounds of the bells of the cows, horses, and sheep in their soundscape. After our initial research we decided to make a collaborative concert titled Passaggi di tempo in which the residents of Montefalcone were invited to perform together with us, using bells and traditional and obsolete instruments which are part of their sonic heritage. The reaction of the community to our invitation was positive, enthusiastic and the improvised performance came together in a powerful emotional way. A large procession of performers started in a monastery located in the periphery of the town, and in the church towers Nicola (the town’s bell ringer) Fernando and I performed the bells and, when the procession arrived to the square, Nicola was paid a homage in which a traditional musician sang a piece that he co-wrote with us. Nicola was about to retire and nobody was interested in taking his job which is not attractive to young generations and likely will have to be done by a machine or just a speaker and a media player. By 2020 Nicola is still ringing the bells of the Santa maria assunta e dei santi pietro e paolo church. To feel the performers and audience so deeply moved in Passaggi di tempo, to the point that many cried of joy, was one of the most significant and revealing experiences that I ever had as an artist, but also one that presented me with questions about the ethnographic work in sonic art and the urgency of not colonize, exoticize or romanticize the community and its social and cultural context, but instead to collaborate with members from the hosting community
habitatsonoro 