Isabel Lewis
Listening and Singing Walks, Isle of Skye, 2021
Collaborator - Richy Carey
In this Art Night co-commission with ATLAS, Lewis poses the question, “What can we learn about love from lichen?” as a point of departure. Building on research and conversations with locally based collaborators, Isabel choreographed a series of guided walks across Skye — at Achnacloich, Scorrybreac, and Coille Ìosal, Braes. Led by the local agents — a wild forager, a composer, and a lichen expert, the walks wove a circuitous narrative about interspecies bonds and the potential for ecological attunement, brought together in a hosted occasion at Braes Hall on Saturday 19th June.
With sound, song, touch and taste “What can we learn about love from lichen?” tunes into more sensuous forms of knowing the landscape and the society between species — and thinking with lichen.
I collated a series of instruction scores by the likes of Pauline Oliveros, Annea Lockwood and myself, and hosted a series of walks. The arc of the singing and listening exercises echoed the landscapes we walked though, stopping along the way to perform works that bring people together to pay attention to each other, and to the world around them, through sound.
Isabel Lewis’ 2021 Art Night project is curated by Helen Nisbet, Artistic Director of Art Night as a co-commission with ATLAS Arts, with support from Goethe-Institut.