sound sculpture
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Can sound sculpture boost Deaf Awareness? Melissa Mostyn talks to Colin Redwood about his work.
People interact with sound through my work,
asserts the artist in his statement, and in doing so, they become aware of their own sense of hearing and realise that the not-perfect sounds created are equivalent to how deaf/hard of hearing people hear sounds - muffled, muted and distorted. My work makes people question their ability to hear and how much they take it for granted.
Colin Redwood is nearly 48 and, in Deaf Community terms, oral deaf. The majority of his work - be it a near-abstract, flint-like light, a structure resembling Battersea Power Station, or a park bench - revolves round the concept of sound and how its reception affects the way we communicate with others.
Strictly speaking, it isn't Deaf Culture. Rather, it applies the Deaf Awareness principle in its loosest context, inasmuch as it highlights variations in the auditory make-up of deaf and hard-of-hearing people - especially those who are deaf late in life. The medical model it might be, but at least it sets hearing people thinking about acquired hearing loss. Of one sound sculpture, I had lots of people complaining that it wanted tuning,
laughs Redwood, but that's the reaction I wanted!
A latecomer, Redwood only became an artist ten years ago on the perceptive advice of his wife Michelle: When I first met Colly he was in a pretty dull job. At this time he was only 37. From previous letters from him I knew he was artistic and wanted more from life. Not being negative about his parents, but they were of the mindset that bringing in money from any job was all-important.
It was Michelle who prompted her husband to apply to college - and made him the person he is today.
Michelle was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2003. Given the severe symptoms she had in the six months pre-diagnosis and for a year afterwards - including losing the sight in her left eye - it's a measure of their mutual support that Colin abandoned his artistic practice to care for her until her acceptance onto a drugs trial last year, which enabled her to return to her PhD and full-time work.
One HND in Ceramics and Visual Arts BA degree later, Colin Redwood is now poised for a MA in Public Art at Bolton University, working alongside landscape architects. The excitement is palpable: I have this wonderful dream about a theme park based on sound: very disabled-friendly with both blind and deaf people benefiting from vibrations through the ground, walls and around them! Natural noises like a river, a volcanic eruption, earthquake, thunder and lightning…
last updated: 2005-11-01 00:00:00
tags : sculpture installation sound deaf_Arts