The sound spaces of flowing — La­ra Dâ­ma­so’s am­pho­rae at the Kunst­mu­se­um Mag­de­burg

In the cur­rent ex­hi­bi­ti­on “For Our Flowing Voices; I Am­pho­rae”, La­ra Dâ­ma­so trans­forms the mo­nas­tery church of the Kunst­mu­se­um Mag­de­burg in­to a space of re­so­na­ting sen­sua­li­ty. At the cent­re of her in­stal­la­ti­on are fi­ve am­pho­rae fil­led wi­th wa­ter, who­se shapes and si­zes are shaped li­ke phy­si­cal spaces by the flow of the voice. Dâ­ma­so’s voice sets the wa­ter in mo­ti­on, her re­cor­ded vo­cal com­po­si­ti­ons crea­te vi­si­ble sound wa­ves on the sur­face of the wa­ter. The po­ly­pho­nic per­for­mance com­bi­nes the re­so­nan­ce of the ves­sels wi­th the acou­stics of the church and crea­tes a new di­men­si­on of so­nic phy­si­cal­i­ty — from breathing pre-hu­man sounds to youthful la­ments and mys­te­rious fore­bo­dings.

The in­stal­la­ti­on draws on spi­ri­tu­al tra­di­ti­ons and in­ter­wea­ves them wi­th Dâ­ma­so’s cen­tral ar­tis­tic me­di­um: the voice. In­spi­red by Mecht­hild von Mag­de­bur­g’s me­ta­phor of the “flowing light of the dei­ty”, the flow of voice, bo­dy and space can be ex­pe­ri­en­ced bo­th phy­si­cal­ly and poe­ti­cal­ly. Dâ­ma­so ex­plo­res the ex­pres­si­ve, the­ra­peu­tic and po­li­ti­cal po­ten­ti­al of the voice and her ap­proach elu­des the di­sci­pli­na­ry power struc­tures of speech. Her me­dia in­clude per­for­mance, sound, sculp­tu­re, vi­deo and text, al­ways fo­cus­sing on vi­brant pre­sence and the plu­ra­li­ty of the self in flux. The ex­hi­bi­ti­on thus in­vi­tes vi­si­tors to en­ter in­to a me­di­ta­ti­ve dia­lo­gue wi­th their own hea­ring, the flow of wa­ter and the spi­ri­tu­al depth of the his­to­ri­cal site.