Sun, Nov 12
|Nin Fung
Rhythms of the Inter-Island
by a HKU student team led by Otto Heim and supported by Celestial天上 and soundpocket. This set of interactive installations is for you to play! Listen or make noise... Does it recall sounds that you hear on the islands?
Time & Location
Nov 12, 2023, 10:00 AM – Nov 26, 2023, 6:00 PM
Nin Fung, 21 Mui Wo Chung Hau St, Lantau Island, Hong Kong
About the event
“Rhythms of the Inter-Island” is designed to draw visitors’ and residents’ attention to often overlooked qualities and dimensions of the relationships that characterize and distinguish life on the islands, by making them accessible to auditory experience, enjoyment, and reflection. The project creates and presents music composed and performed in response to sounds and voices heard and overheard near the sea, to explore and appreciate the vibrancy, fragility, and resilience of the inter-island environment that sustains the culture and identity of islanders.
The series of sound installations is made of found objects spreading found and composed sounds at different points of a public space. As visitors walk pass, they hear sounds arise — result of unseen interactions with the elements or themselves. Sounds echo each other, forming strange, asynchronous melodies, and invite passers-by— suddenly transformed into improvised musicians— to explore an ecosystem of sounds. Calling visitors to “listen otherwise”, by triggering surprise, discovery, curiosity, and reflection, the installation questions our perception and representation of sounds/noise, and brings attention to our kinship with the sea and the wind, two vital and defining elements of island life.
About the organisers:
Otto Heim, with HKU students: Karen Chan Wing Yin, Alice Chuk Suet Ying, He Chutong, Lily Kwan Pui Chi, Rosa Marie Haslung Meyer, Sanjaya Bharti, Mandy Siu Hiu Man, Claudia Tse Hei Lam, Wong Tsz Yin, Mike Yuen Chit To, with the support of Celestial天上 and soundpocket.
Originally from Switzerland, Otto Heim has been teaching in the School of English at HKU since 2001. His research interests focus on writing from the Pacific, or Oceania, specifically poetry and performance, and on small island cultures more generally. He has served on the editorial boards of the Island Studies Journal and Shima has organized several island-themed conferences at HKU, including the second Island Cities and Urban Archipelagos conference in 2016, and the symposium The Space Between: Creativity, Performance and Impact in Contemporary Island Societies in 2018.
Acknowledgment: This project is supported by the Common Core and the School of English, The University of Hong Kong.