Pearla Pigao: Weaving Voices
24.05.24 – 04.08.24
Kunstnernes Hus
Oslo, Norway
” Sound is filtered through craft as form and driving force.”
Pearla Pigao
About the exhibition
For Kunstnernes Hus, Pearla Pigao has created an installation that reacts to the presence and movement of visitors through the skylit exhibition hall. The exhibition explores the human voice as material for a series of new textile works. Voices are translated into binary digital compositions, which are in turn hand-woven. By weaving steel wires into the cotton, the textiles become antennas for interaction, forming an electric field with the observer’s body. This generates various sound patterns in the space. Pigao is interested in the voice as a personal and transcendent tool that creates connections from one body to another. The composition, which includes the artist’s own voice, is composed of eight parts–each based on a chord that sets the musical tone. When moving around the textiles, the chords are activated and interact with each other in a textile choir of sorts.
Pigao often incorporates performative elements into her installations and collaborates with musicians and dancers. During the exhibition period at Kunstnernes Hus, she presents a performance that is specifically developed for Weaving Voices, where a group of dancers carries copper wires on their bodies. The sound composition is created through the dancers’ touch of each other’s skin surfaces. In Pigao’s creative universe, bodies are not only observers but also actors who create – both individually and collectively – through proximity, movement, and interaction.
The composition is created in collaboration with Sigurd Thomassen. The technical part of the work is designed and created in collaboration with electronics developer Henrik Waarum. The performance is developed in collaboration with Trine Lise Moe, and the participating dancers are Fredrik Petrov, Natanya Helena Kjølås, Even Eileraas and Trine Lise Moe.
Dance Performance during Weaving Voices:
Find more exhibition information online here.
Image: Installation views: Uli Holz
