Judy Darragh & Rachel Shearer
Girls in Trees
2006
acoustic
Sound artist Rachel Shearer releases sound works nationally and internationally under the pseudonym ‘Lovely Midget.’ Sometimes called ‘The Queen of Kitsch,’ Shearer’s Brick Bay collaborator, Judy Darragh, has exhibited throughout New Zealand for the past twenty years and was recently the subject of a major retrospective exhibition, ‘So…You Made It’ at Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington. Together, the pair has created a collaborative sound piece exclusively for Brick Bay.
Utilizing sound as a sculptural entity, Darragh and Shearer personalize – and ultimately humanize – the sound of the bush with Girls in Trees, a sound work that ‘gives a voice to nature.’* Reciting the Maori and Latin terms for plants and trees found growing on the farm and its surrounds, the chants and whispers of children’s voices emerge from beneath a fallen Puriri tree. Enclosed by bush, the site acts as a natural auditorium.
An aural, rather than physical intervention, the work consists of two speakers concealed beneath the boardwalk that enables the surrounding soundscape to blend with Girls in Trees. Even when the audience is absent, the invisible work will be audible, conjuring up allusions to the classic ‘tree falling in the woods’ scenario.
With city dwellers anticipating a reprieve from the noise of an urban landscape, the duo disrupts expectations of the silence of nature, instead encouraging participants to actively consider their aural environment. The piece contributes to and is amalgamated with natural refrains such as insects, birds and wind, creating an ethereal chorus that personifies the bush.
Serena Bentley
*Artist’s statement Brick Bay 2006
