FREE

soundscape installation

Cages come in many forms - ornate, silken, rusted, web-like, unnoticed, invisible.
 But what happens when energies sing, flowing round bars, forcing locks, streaming, surging, swelling new horizons..?


FREE site specific audio installation was originally made for Hand of Road microfestival in Queen's Arcade, Cardiff, part of Made in Roath Arts Festival, Cardiff in October 2012.  Inspired by the architecture of the space, and the shopping centre as a pivot of an economic model currently undergoing a time of stress and change, the visual focus was an ornate birdcage containing a damaged credit card...
 
...but, flying free around the shopping centre - successfully competing with the usual piped music - was a flock of invisible birds.


FREE was adapted and re-sited in Butetown History and Arts Centre, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, as part of Women's Arts Association exhibition in November 2012.  Minus the credit card, this new context, with its rich history of docklands Cardiff, and the struggle women have to gain equality in so many areas of our culture, gave options for readings around different notions of freedom from those when sited in a shopping centre.


The installation was re-contextualised once again in February 2013 for an anti-violence charity event at Arts Centre, Pontardawe, West Wales.  Part of a fund-raising performance for One Billion Rising, a global day of action working to end violence towards women and girls, the installation carried the energy generated by the powerful performances from the theatre, through the bar, along the corridor, out to the street, up into the night sky.

snippet of actuality from FREE in Queen's Arcade, Cardiff
1' 28"