Cultures of Sound

As part of Cultures of Sound, the School of Arts & Humanities at the University of Huddersfield was delighted to present Field Studies – Land Body Botany by award-winning photographer Dr Yan Wang Preston and leading experimental music composer Dr Monty Adkins, with guest artist Carrie Williams.

This exhibition paid tender attention to so-called non-native invasive species Rhododendron Ponticum within one of its many ‘infested’ landscapes. Luminous and exquisite works in a variety of media were made between 2020 and 2023, shaped by how the COVID-19 crisis altered our relationships to the landscapes, flora and fauna that surround us.

Yan Wang Preston conducted careful and exhaustive artistic research around the rhododendron from her perspective as a photographer, and in collaboration with composer Monty Adkins and textile artist Carrie Williams situated it within post and decolonical narratives, as well as literally within the landscape of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire.

Visual and auditory representations of the passing of time and the turning of the seasons were manifested through material representations which referenced the artists’ cultural heritage and complicated their relationship to the categorising impulse of the institution. For the first time Wang Preston produced sculptural objects which contained layers of meaning bound up in her choices around construction and materials, whereas Adkins and Williams brought their distinct artistic and artisanal practices to bear on the body of research.

Hylas was a dialogue between language and music. In this first dialogue between the artists, they pointed towards George Berkeley (1685-1753) and his book 'Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous' (1713), which considers the nature of material substance.

"... silence ... I was afraid to look ... a new experience ... so it shall cease ... unknown uniformities ... replay the tape ... living somewhere with space ... in the faraway song ... it's table lands ... drawing of a tree ... think of me tomorrow ... of body limits ... at the limit ... the blood poured from her ... the age of twenty-seven ..." (Lycett, 2023)

"more than content to spend eternity amongst the beautiful they occasionally thought they heard their own names being called out" (Stillabower, 2023)

Hylas is an ongoing collaboration, and each iteration will be a work in progress.

Drawing/Performing The Bath House Galleries contributed to current debates on the importance of drawing, considering its entanglements with sites of history, as a tool for song making and its role in the creation of narrative.

Click here to watch a film of Simon Woolham with L.A.S.H 'performing the Bath House Galleries'

In this installation Simon Woolham re-amassed a large-scale artwork consisting of graphite frottage that was first commissioned by Drawing Projects UK. This was installed within the the unique two-storey exhibition space at the Bath House Galleries, and formed a theatrical backdrop for a music performance by L.A.S.H, consisting of violin, guitar and harmonising vocals.

Woolham's practice highlights how history and space are not a fixed quantities, and are mediated through individual and collective experience. The pictorial space of the drawing acts as a site for interconnectivity and reflection on the histories and spaces represented.