Yvonne Buchheim brings her song archive project to Cardigan
swimming pool, 23 May 2008.

Image of ‘Sound Water Beat’ performance in Cardigan Swimming Pool.

Yvonne received one of the last ‘Good Ideas’ awards from Safle in September 2007 to take her Song Archive project to Cardigan Swimming pool, a project she initiated in 2003 based on collaborating and communicating with the public through song in response to Johann G Herder’s song collection.

Yvonne created a performance piece in the pool as part of the Holy Hiatus public art festival in May 2008 which, through a series of performances and a symposium, addressed issues of ritual and liminality in performance art.

The audience gathered around the poolside to watch as two professional singers performed a partly improvised song based on the motion and movements of two swimmers. The usually light space was blacked out and spotlights illuminated the pool and swimmers. The acoustics of the voices filling the space, the theatrical lighting and the chance thunderstorm outside all played a part in transforming the function of the pool into a very different and unique stage. The performance hinted at the relationship between ritual and spontaneity, echoed in the dialogue between the singers and swimmers.

In addition, during the week of the Holy Hiatus festival, Yvonne invited the public visiting the pool to sing single notes, which she recorded. Yvonne is now working with a composer to create a piece of music from these recordings and those from the performance. The resulting piece will be exhibited in the pool in September 2008 as an underwater sound installation.