Last updated: June 14, 2024
Article
Artist-In-Residence 2024
NPS/Photo
Hear Me Out: the relationship between people and places.
Sound artists, Gordon Hempton and Perri Lynch Howard have released their creative contribution to the community. Both were the 2024 artists-in-residence at the ACA Soundscape Field Station, a partnership between Atlantic Center for the Arts and Canaveral National Seashore.
Hear Me Out is a visual and sound art piece that asks the question, “do artists have a responsibility to defend the beauty that inspires their creative work? We quietly nod yes. The voice of Doris Leeper, here and hear. The dawn chorus and evening insects, here and hear. This work…stands as a pilot project for a deeper investigation into the synergistic relationship between people and places.” – Perri Lynch Howard
Hempton and Howard were embedded in the soundscape of the Eldora community for five weeks, “listening for pockets of quiet between bustles of commuter traffic overland, and overpopulated airspace above. We drew inspiration from Mark Twain, John Muir, Walt Whitman, Shakespeare, and Doris ‘Doc’ Leeper. If these fierce luminaries hadn't done their work, we couldn’t do ours. Sometimes in tandem, and otherwise in sequence, we led sound walks and created soundscapes for blind youth and community members longing for quiet at Canaveral National Seashore.” The public can access this creative work at https://www.perrilynchhoward.com/sound-art/hear-me-out/
Gordon Hempton is an Emmy award winning field recordist most famous for his project “One Square Inch,” an area of silence located within the Hoh Rainforest of Olympic National Park. He created the non-profit Quiet Parks International (QPI), which advocates saving quiet for the benefit of all life. Working together with Perri Lynch Howard and other collaborators, QPI promotes “a world that offers quiet within and without. A world where everyone has daily access to quiet and opportunities to listen to the sounds of nature. A world where the experience of quiet nature is directly linked to inner quiet, peace and joy of being. When we save quiet, we save everything else.”
The 2024 residency is supported by Friends of Canaveral, the City of New Smyrna Beach, Latitude Margaritaville and Atlantic Center for the Arts. For media inquiries, please contact Eve Payor, ACA Community Arts Director at 386-423-1753 or Laura Henning, Chief of Interpretation & Visitor Services, Canaveral National Seashore at 321-267-1110 ext. 25.