A DOUBLE LISTEN: “Yama no Oto” by Toolbox Percussion

Hong Kong House at Echigo-Tsumari Art Field 2023
A DOUBLE LISTEN: Yama no Oto

With the support of the Tsunan Town government and in collaboration with the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale Executive Committee and the NPO Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Collaborative Organization, the Art Promotion Office launched a three-year project titled “Hong Kong House at Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale” in Sakasamaki, Kamigo, Japan in the summer of 2018, as a platform for residence, exchange and exhibition. To coincide with the 8th Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, the second edition of the three-year Hong Kong House project has been commenced. In 2023, the participating art group from Hong Kong is Toolbox Percussion, which was selected through an open call of proposal by the joint adjudication panel of Hong Kong and Japan in 2020.

The sound-based art exhibition A DOUBLE LISTEN: Yama no Oto is Toolbox Percussion’s venture into interdisciplinary practices. It features various sound artists and composers including Louis Siu, Fung Lam, Vvzela Kook and Ying Kwok. The benumbed sonorous objects, among the series of sound art installations, create a sonic experience that is both playful and contemplative.

The sonorous objects are set up to be ruptured, but this does not have to be an act of destruction. It can also have positive connotations. Traversing and crisscrossing the objects as performers, the viewers and audience are given a leak through physical and temporal rupture, resulting in intriguing seclusion. Different objects and sounds are haphazardly laid out in a finite space, leading the visitors to construct a sound after-image and a unique listening experience.

Taking wooden pedals as the starting point of the work, in a playful living room with an interactive installation of mahjong, a listening station, and a digital playground. Toolbox Percussion examines the fascinating cognitive divide between an ephemeral concept and an enduring concept. Inviting everyone to immerse themselves in ordinary spaces and discover diverse listening experiences, the exhibition inspires and refines the artistic focus of the artists into a cross-disciplinary program that will resonate with visitors, artists, performers, local people, and nature.

Japan Debut: Sonus De Gaia

In the name of Gaia, blessed by the picturesque and peaceful view in Tsunan, we held a Japan Debut of “Sonus De Gaia” as part of our housewarming event for the exhibition “A DOUBLE LISTEN: Yama no Oto” at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2023. We celebrated the blessings of our mother earth by presenting four percussion works that resonated with nature and the environment.

“Arashiyama” by Ken Ueno, uses bamboo as an instrument, bringing us to stillness, allowing us to feel the breeze of the wind wiggling in the bamboo grove and invoking awareness of sustainable development and climate change. “Ricefall” by Michael Pisaro, a collaboration with local residents, allowed us to experience the pleasant sound of the raindrops slowly falling to the ground with closed eyes.

“Torched and Wrecked” by David Skidmore and “Urban Construction” by Austin Yip with intense emotion and motion to lighten up the concert. It is also our pleasure to invite Hong Kong contemporary dance artist, Wayson Poon to express the repressed feeling within the strong pulses through the body movements and postures in “Urban Construction” and conveyed reflections on the relationship between urban development and the environment.

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Performance in Echigo-Tsumari “Kamigo Clove Theatre” temporary theater

Photos provided by Toolbox Percussion