Hostname: page-component-669899f699-rg895 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-27T12:42:05.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Attunement to the Great Near with Rebecca Belmore’s Wave Sound

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2024

Georgia Phillips-Amos Open the ORCID record for Georgia Phillips-Amos [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 2017, on the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation, Anishinaabe-kwe performance artist Rebecca Belmore set a quartet of listening trumpets entitled Wave Sound on shorelines across Canada’s national parks. Her metallic instruments amplify the water’s frequencies by drawing them in close, inviting visitors to stop and listen to the found sounds. This technology operates on the scale of W.E.B. Du Bois’s rarely considered sci-fi “megascope,” inviting a new mode of listening to the vital and resilient voice of the lands and waters beyond narratives of settler colonialism.

Type
Student Essay Contest Honorable Mentions
Information
TDR , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , September 2024 , pp. 178 - 194
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

References

Beaucage, Marjorie, dir. 1992. Speaking to Their Mother: Ayumee-Aawach Oomama-Mowan. V Tape. Video and DVD, 25 min.Google Scholar
Brown, Adrienne, and Rusert, Britt. 2015. “Introduction to ‘The Princess Steel.’” PMLA 130, 3:819–22. doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2015.130.3.819 Google Scholar
Bruser, David, Benzie, Robert, and Poisson, Jayme. 2017. “Ontario Commits $85 Million to Clean Up ‘Gross Neglect’ at Grassy Narrows.” Toronto Star, 27 June. www.thestar.com/news/gta/ontario-commits-85-million-to-clean-up-gross-neglect-at-grassy-narrows/article_bcb44285-a579-58d5-90be-a91feda7776b.html Google Scholar
Burgess, Marilyn. 1999. “Imagined Geographies of Rebecca Belmore.” Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine 93 (January–March):12–20.Google Scholar
Campt, Tina M. 2017. Listening to Images. Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Concannon, Amy. 2011. Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1908–10?) 2015. “The Princess Steel.” PMLA 130, 3:819–29. doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2015.130.3.819 Google Scholar
Enright, Robert. 2005. “The Poetics of History: An Interview with Rebecca Belmore.” Border Crossings. bordercrossingsmag.com/article/the-poetics-of-history-an-interview-with-rebecca-belmore Google Scholar
Galloway, Kate. 2020. “Listening to Indigenous Knowledge of the Land in Two Contemporary Sound Art Installations.” Feminist Media Histories 6, 2:176–206. doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2020.6.2.176 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glissant, Édouard. 1999. Poetics of Relation. University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Gogol, Nikolai. (1935) 2020. The Nose & Other Stories. Trans. Fusso, Susanne. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Gomez-Barris, Macarena. 2017. The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives. Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hampton, Chris. 2022. “Mammoth Sound Sculptures, Traveling Shows and Futurists: This is the McMichael?” Toronto Star, 22 October. www.thestar.com/entertainment/visualarts/2022/10/26/mammoth-sound-sculptures-travelling-shows-and-futurists-the-mcmichael-reimagines-itself-as-the-home-of-the-art-of-canada.html Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge.Google Scholar
Harney, Stefano, and Moten, Fred. 2013. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. Minor Compositions.Google Scholar
Horton, Jessica L. 2017. “Indigenous Artists Against the Anthropocene.” Art Journal 76, 2:48–69. doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2017.1367192 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levasseur, Joanne, and Marcoux, Jacques. 2015. “Bad Water: ‘Third World’ Conditions on First Nations in Canada.” CBC, 15 October. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/bad-water-third-world-conditions-on-first-nations-in-canada-1.3269500 Google Scholar
Lothian, W.F. 1987. A Brief History of Canada’s National Parks. Environment Canada, Parks.Google Scholar
Manuel, Arthur, and Grand Chief Ronald, M. Derrickson. 2015. Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-up Call. Between the Lines.Google Scholar
Mawhinney, Janet. 1998. “‘Giving Up the Ghost’: Disrupting the (Re)Production of White Privilege in Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Organizational Change.” MA thesis, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0008/MQ33991.pdf Google Scholar
McKay, Ian. 1998. “After Canada: On Amnesia and Apocalypse in the Contemporary Crisis.” Acadiensis 28, 1:76–97. www.jstor.org/stable/30303227 Google Scholar
McLuhan, Marshall. 1967. “Technology and Environment.” Artscanada 105:5–7.Google Scholar
McMichael Canadian Art Collection. 2020. “‘A Like Vision’: The Group of Seven at 100.” Accessed 18 January 2024. mcmichael.com/event/group-of-seven-100/#:∼:text=The%20McMichael%20Canadian%20Art%20Collection%2C%20as%20it%20is%20known%20today,artistic%20legacy%20of%20the%20countryGoogle Scholar
McMichael, Robert. 1986. One Man’s Obsession. Prentice-Hall Canada.Google Scholar
McMichael v. Ontario. 1997. 105 O.A.C. 161 (CA). ca.vlex.com/vid/mcmichael-v-ont-680767741Google Scholar
Nagam, Julie. 2011. “(Re)mapping the Colonized Body: The Creative Interventions of Rebecca Belmore in the Cityscape.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 35, 4:147–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nanibush, Wanda. 2014. “An Interview with Rebecca Belmore.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 3, 1:213–17.Google Scholar
Nanibush, Wanda. 2016. “About Land.” Canadian Art 33, 3 (Fall):104–07.Google Scholar
Nanibush, Wanda. 2020. “In Performances and Photography, Rebecca Belmore Faces the Monumental.” aperture, 15 October. aperture.org/editorial/in-performances-and-photography-rebecca-belmore-faces-the-monumental/ Google Scholar
Nanibush, Wanda. 2023. “The Sound of the Colour Field.” In Breaking Protocol, ed. Hupfield, Maria, 29–33. Inventory Press and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.Google Scholar
Nixon, Lindsay. 2017. “Rebecca Belmore Wants Us to Listen to the Land.” Canadian Art, 7 June. canadianart.ca/interviews/rebecca-belmore-landmarks-2017 Google Scholar
Nixon, Rob. 2011. “Stranger in the Eco-Village: Environmental Time, Race, and Ecologies of Looking.” In Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment, ed. DeLoughrey, Elizabeth and George, B. Handley, 159–81. Harvard University Press. doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195394429.003.0008 Google Scholar
Nyong’o, Tavia. 2022. “Unburdening Liveness.” TDR 66, 4 (T256):28–36. doi.org/10.1017/S1054204322000545 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Brian, John , and White, Peter, eds. 2014. Beyond Wilderness: The Group of Seven, Canadian Identity, and Contemporary Art. McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
O’Rourke, Debbie. 1997. “An Artist in the New Wilderness: Interventions by Rebecca Belmore.” Espace Sculpture Magazine 42 (Winter):28–30. id.erudit.org/iderudit/9819acGoogle Scholar
Parikka, Jussi. 2016. “Planetary Goodbyes: Post-History and Future Memories of an Ecological Past.” In Memory in Motion: Archives, Technology, and the Social, ed. Blom, Ina, Ludemo, Trond , and Røssaak, Eivind, 129–52. Amsterdam University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phelan, Peggy. 1993. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. Routledge.Google Scholar
Podemski, Jessica, dir. 2018. Future History: Harnessing Knowledge. Season 1, Episode 4, “Water.” Redcloud Studios. DVD.Google Scholar
Porter, Jody. 2016. “Children of the Poisoned River.” CBC News, 17 April. www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/children-of-the-poisoned-river-mercury-poisoning-grassy-narrows-first-nation/ Google Scholar
Rilke, Rainer Maria. (1919) 1999. “Primal Sound.” In Gramophone, Film, Typewriter by Friedrich A. Kittler, trans. Winthrop-Young, Geoffrey and Wutz, Michael, 38–42. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ritter, Kathleen. 2018. “Wave Sound.” In Facing the Monumental: Rebecca Belmore, ed. Nanibush, Wanda, 84–93. Art Gallery of Ontario.Google Scholar
Robinson, Dylan. 2020. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. 2021. As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance. University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Tanana, Heather, Combs, Julie, and Hoss, Aila. 2021. “Water Is Life: Law, Systemic Racism, and Water Security in Indian Country.” Health Security 19, 1:78–82. doi.org/10.1089/hs.2021.0034 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tuck, Eve, and Wayne Yang, K.. 2012. “Decolonization Is not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, 1:1–40.Google Scholar
UNESCO. 2023. United Nations World Water Development Report. www.unesco.org/reports/wwdr/2023/ Google Scholar
Waite, P.B. 2019. “Confederation.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 29 October. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/confederation Google Scholar
White, Thomas. (1885) 1887. Sessional Papers, Volume 6. First Session of the Sixth Parliament of the Dominion of Canada. Volume XX. Maclean, Roget & Co., Parliamentary Printers.Google Scholar

TDReadings

Barnette, Ashlyn King. 2024. “Native North America in Motion: Performances of Resistance and Resilience.” TDR 68, 3 (T263):195–208. doi.org/10.1017/S1054204324000200 Google Scholar
Blocker, Jane. 2015. “History in the Present Progressive Sonic Imposture at The Pedicord Apts.” TDR 59, 4 (T228):36–50. doi.org/10.1162/DRAM_a_00495 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyong’o, Tavia. 2022. “Unburdening Liveness.” TDR 66, 4 (T256):28–36. doi.org/10.1017/S1054204322000545 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Diana. 1998. “A Savage Performance: Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco’s ‘Couple in the Cage.’” TDR 42, 2 (T158):160–75. doi.org/10.1162/dram.1998.42.2.160 CrossRefGoogle Scholar