Down, down, down she went. Could not stop herself falling.

This is my re-imagining of falling down a well, constructed from 20 audiobooks of Alice in Wonderland. I was only interested in capturing the act of falling rather than telling a story, so the 'narrators' and the 'characters' are suspended together in a never-ending experience forever. The loop would go on and on and on and on...
 

Well Well

Small Beauties is a 60 minute unravelling of power, society, femininity and the eternal quest for the elixir of youth. From the primordial forests of ancient Earth to the newest laboratory research into cancer cures, from sixteenth century paintings to 1950s science fiction B-movies, this artwork examines life through compound eyes of the queen wasp.

Small Beauties was researched, written, recorded and produced by Sarah Gillett. It was commissioned by the Übersee-Museum Bremen, Germany, as part of NEO Collections, a project bringing together artists, scientists, curators and technologists to create new meaningful stories from online museum collections.

The development of Small Beauties would not have been possible without the expertise and time of Volker Löhrmann, Curator of Entomology; Etta Grotrian, Head of Digital and Abhay Adhikari, Digital Identities.

NEO Collections is funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

© Sarah Gillett 2023

Small Beauties

How did a dead rare bird from Sāmoa end up in Edinburgh in 1844? Now critically endangered, can its species be saved, or will the closest genetic relative to the dodo also be lost forever? This is a story about trying to grasp meaning across unfathomable chasms, the unattainable certainty of the original, the fragility of knowledge, and the contradictions of human nature.

Please do not touch was researched, written and produced by Sarah Gillett. It was commissioned by the Übersee-Museum Bremen, Germany, as part of NEO Collections, a project bringing together artists, scientists, curators and technologists to create new meaningful stories from online museum collections. NEO Collections is funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
 
The development of Please do not touch would not have been possible without the expertise and time of Moeumu Uili, Samoan Conservation Society, Martin Stervander, Senior Curator of Birds, National Museums Scotland, Etta Grotrian and her colleagues from the Übersee-Museum and National University of Samoa, and Sohaila Abdulali, where the bird conversations began. 

You can watch, read and listen to stories by poets, artists, journalists and scientists about the Pacific Islands on The Blue Continent website at https://blue-continent.de/.
 
If you enjoyed Please do not touch then follow the Übersee-Museum on Instagram @ueberseemuseum and me @inkystudio for new work and updates. And if you want to support efforts to save the manumea from extinction, then please please get in touch with the Samoa Conservation Society via their facebook page @conservesamoa or their website samoaconservationsociety.wordpress.com. I know Moe will be very grateful. 

Thank you for listening.

Please do not touch

2024

Written for The Surround Summer Album 2017
© Sarah Gillett

Voice Memos

Strawberries

Written for The Surround Christmas Album 2016
© Sarah Gillett

Big Game Country

A collage audio piece recorded live. All participants were given a haiku to speak, with the instruction that noone could speak over anyone else. The organic poem that unfurled was then recut and edited, layering voices and words.

Cloud chorus

I wrote this 3 minute piece to accompany my show, Quarry, at Brocket Gallery. All the work in the show was inspired by Paolo Uccello’s The Hunt in the Forest. In this text, I wanted to return us to the language of the real world after inhabiting the bright theatricality of the Renaissance.

PACK

1996; 4-track audio recording; 7.17mins 

I made this piece on a cassette tape, so it’s a bit hissy. I know I could have cleaned it up, but I quite like the slightly distant voices. If you can, then it’s really meant to be listened to in the dark, loud. The voices are me and a friend, and we performed each track in a single, real time take.

Black night

I lie in my bed, body warm and relaxed, waiting. When I open my eyes the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling give me a little thrill. Outside low-lying cloud and light pollution hides the universe from me but inside this room I am watched over by Cassiopeia and Orion, the Plough and the Pole star and this makes me feel safe.

Winter Solstice

Investigating the life of things across space and time.

inkystudio

Pinned to spotlight

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