Name of Organization: chatterbird
Project Overview: Puffin funding supported a Black-centered aural creative residency in Nashville, TN, and Mobile, AL, that was planned and implemented by chatterbird in collaboration with musicians JayVe Montgomery, Ben Lamar Gay, Maya Stone, and Joshua Dent. The creative team gathered in May 2022 (Nashville) and September 2022 (Mobile) via private, COVID-safe creative residencies to gather musical improvisations in areas of displacement and racial trauma. Using technology that captures and translates the vibrations of plants into sound, the creative team used this captured “sound bed,” as a foundation for improvised musical call and response, which was captured in real time via audio and video.
In May 2022, the creative team visited Centennial Park in Nashville for a private creative residency. Source material for the residency included the exploration of narratives from the enslaved Louisianan Charley Williams (1843-1865) and contained musical elements based on the spiritual “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” and other spirituals. Audio and video were captured for future use.
In September, 2022, the musicians visited Mobile, Alabama, for the second stage of the residency. Visits included Africatown Cemetery and the Dora Franklin Finley African American Heritage Trail. The Africatown community in Alabama is historically significant as it is a settlement founded by descendants of the enslaved people aboard the Clotilda, the final ship to enter the United States as part of the transatlantic slave trade. The Clotilda was burned and ultimately sunk in Mobile Bay, where it was lost until 2019, when the Alabama Historical Commission and partners located it. The creative team, with the approval and collaboration of the City of Mobile, toured Mobile Bay and recorded audio and video in Africatown Cemetery in a private setting using plant vibrations to create a sound bed for exploration and musical call & response.
Both residencies were completed in a COVID-safe manner and were not open to the public.
Recordings, sourced via the two creative residencies, pictured below, will be used to create a sound installation with a local affiliate for part one of a two-fold residency. The National
Museum of African American Music is a likely partner.
Chatterbird has served as a co-commissioner, co-producer, and presenter of the residency and will manage all progress related to subsequent sound installations. We provided an admin team that helped with logistical/planning support, assistance in budget oversight, and fundraising support.
We feel confident that this project achieved its proposed outcomes, which included sound bathing, deep listening, and improvisational sessions; guided meditations and spiritual healing sessions; exploration of uses and symbolism of plants in local landscapes, and using those plants as part of the musical/creative process; and knowledge building and “place” making through music.
We are currently in discussion to pair the sound installation with a screening of the Netflix documentary Descendant, which tells the story of Africatown and its descendants. There will only be an in person experience if COVID numbers allow and strict safety protocol will be
