Voicing Silence is an artistic response aiming to explore emotional responses to the Sixth Mass Extinction. It questions how to represent it, how to make sense of it and what new languages are needed to express and address it.

About Voicing Silence

The project was realised over the 2020 lockdown period by Lou Chapelle (AKA Laurence Payot) with invited collaborating artists: poet Scott Farlow, composer Jon Hughes, animator Laura Spark, choreographer Stacey Atkinson and lighting designer Mark Hilditch. Over 150 participants took part in a range of online workshops with the invited artists, leading to the final holographic piece, presented on ONCA Barge for Lost Species Day 2021.

Voicing Silence was funded through the Arts and Humanity Research Council and University of Leeds, as part of Thinking Through Extinction in partnership with Manchester Museum and Corridor8.

On Friday November 26, 4 – 5.30pm, Lou will be hosting a free family workshop for ages 7 to adult, using collage, drawing, painting and poetry to explore feelings surrounding biodiversity loss, and the power of individual and collective action. Reserve your place here.

About Lou Chapelle

“I am a cross disciplinary artist, weaving socially engaged and participatory approaches with digital and new technologies. I work in collaboration with people and communities – local or global, established or imagined for the time of a project – to create collective rituals and objects that question and re-invent our sense of belonging. By becoming part of my work, people are given tools to connect with one another and experience the everyday from a collective perspective. The exchange between the materials and the people that form the artworks is the key ingredient for the creative alchemy to happen. Individual feelings and stories become interwoven into sound, video, or visual pieces, often coming together in multilayered forms.”

Website

OPENING TIMES

Wednesday: 1:00 – 6:00pm
Thursday: 1:00 – 6:00pm
Friday: 1:00 – 6:00pm

UPDATE, 21 DECEMBER 2021: DUE TO THE ESCALATING NUMBERS OF COVID INFECTIONS WE HAVE MADE THE DIFFICULT DECISION TO CLOSE THE BARGE EARLY AND NOT OPEN IN THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS. APOLOGIES FOR ANY DISAPPOINTMENT THIS CAUSES.

Accessibility: The Barge is accessed via a ramp. This can be steep depending on the tide – check tide times here. The installation is on the lower deck which is accessible via a wide flight of stairs. Upstairs, the video can be viewed on a tablet. There is a subtitled version of the piece, and a BSL version.

Image description: blurry digitally collaged image of flowers and leaves in a colour palette of red, orange, grey and black.