Air falbh leis na h-eòin – Away with the Birds: Culture 2014

Isle of Canna, August 2014

Hanna Tuulikki’s body of work exploring the mimesis of bird sounds in Gaelic song was described as ‘heartbreakingly gorgeous’ on BBC Radio Scotland’s The Culture Show in January 2014. Performed in collaboration with vocal artists, field recorder Geoff Sample, filmmaker Daniel Warren, Gaelic singer Mary Smith, textile artist Deirdre Nelson and choreographer Rosalind Masson, the work has been performed in development in a large number of contexts (http://awaywith-thebirds.tumblr.com/).

Following its exhibition at RSA Edinburgh (Between the Late and Early), a graphic score for the piece was exhibited as part of the Sea Change exhibition at RBGE in 2013-14. The complete piece will be performed in August as a site specific work on the Isle of Canna as part of Culture 2014 XX Commonwealth Games, Glasgow.

9 voice version of Air falbh leis na h-eòin (Guth na h-eoòin/Voice of the Bird) ‘highlight’ of Glasgow Tectonics Festival 2013!

Hanna and the birds in the Scotsman: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/music/news-and-features/celebrating-birdsong-the-colour-and-complexity-of-avian-airs-1-2915930

Hanna on the Culture Show with Janice Forsyth  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s8vt9

 

 

‘A complete and immersive evocation of place and sense, an attempted re-imagining of wilderness landscapes both without any human involvement and filled with the echoing resonances of history and tradition.’  (Review of work in progress performance at Tramway, David Pollock, Northings.)

Hanna Tuulikki’s Air falbh leis na h-eòin | Away with the birds is a body of work interrogating the mimesis of birds in Gaelic song.

At its core is a vocal composition, Guth na eòin | Voice of the Bird, created for a choir of female singers for performance outdoors on Canna in the Inner Hebrides. The piece reinterprets archive, fragmenting and re-building extracts of Gaelic songs into an extended soundscape that grows out of and responds to the landscape. It explores the relationship between the Scottish Gaelic tradition and bird communities, evoking the sounds, movements and interactions of several species of birds within a Hebridean landscape.

To create this piece, Hanna will explore the delicate nature of island-life, the co-existence of history and innovation, the relationships between bird, man and the land.

Air falbh leis na h-eòin is currently in development, growing into a site-specific performance for a small Hebridean island. As well as live vocal performance, it will also incorporate dance as well as immersive audio and light installation. It will be an expansive experience, a personal journey across time and place, fostering interaction and a deep connection with our natural and cultural origins.

The project is conceived by artist Hanna Tuulikki and is produced by Trigger in association with Cape Farewell. It is being made by an inter-disciplinary team, consisting of visual artists, musicians, dancers, writers, story-tellers, sound recordists, ornithologists, conservationists and anthropologists.

Nerea Bello: vocalist
Lucy Duncombe: vocalist
Suzy Glass: producer
Rosalind Masson: choreographer
Deirdre Nelson: textile artist
Eleanor Ratcliffe: environmental psychologist
Geoff Sample: field recordist
Mary Smith: vocalist
Daniel Warren: film-maker
Andrew Whitehouse: anthropologist

+ Follow Hanna Tuulikki’s artist diary
+ Follow Geoff Sample’s artist diary
+ More about the project

Hanna Tuulikki is a musician, visual artist and illustrator whose primary focus is the human voice. As a vocalist she performs, composes and records solo and group works, as well as fronting Glasgow-based bands Nalle and Two Wings. Hanna’s art practice is largely place-specific and uses various forms of performance and installation to respond to both rural and urban settings. She often uses voice as a material to experiment with ways of dissolving language and distinctions between separate phenomena. One aspect of her work stems from an interest in the role of song and sound mimesis as way to engage with environment and the sounds that emanate from landscape. Another aspect grows from an interest in ideas of community and the meaning of song in human relationships. Exploration of folk traditions also runs through her work. Hanna makes drawings that parallel her work with sound, illustrating subject, process and narrative.
+ Read more on Hanna Tuulikki in ‘The Wire’
+ www.hannatuulikki.com

Tags: birdsong, event, Gaelic, music, performance, seabirds, song, storytelling