Consonance
Unbuilt, designed for Winterstations 2021
The visitor approaches a sculpture of wood and wind. A breeze changes direction. They think perhaps they hear a melody, a quietly powerful melding of sound and landscape.
Consonance features eight wind-gathering baffles directing air through specially designed whistles enclosed in a small tower.
Canada is a lighthouse to many: we celebrate difference as a foundational strength. Each whistle’s different tone symbolizes those who have taken refuge here and their differences, harmonizing together.
Six whistles for past generations of refugees, plus one for those who will arrive in the future.
The last whistle represents the First Nations upon whose traditional territories we, the displaced and their families, found sanctuary. No conception of our place in this place can exist without stopping to listen to those to whom we are indebted the very land allowing us to be Canadians.
Low-hum monopole whistles designed & prototyped by the author generate a whisper-like tone. Experimentally tuned by the length of their resonance chambers, they gently harmonize with each other according to the directions of the wind.
Both an inward and an outward motion, the baffles’ profile calls to the viewer from within and encourages them to look without.
These simple repetitions accumulate to symbolize the common elements of our lived experiences, coming from all different directions.
The wind-like tones of the whistles are both metaphor and literal: they draw gusts together, celebrating how their differences harmonize.
Just beyond the human scale from every perspective, Consonance is at once immediate and sublime, like a sound you can’t quite place.
