Local artist celebrates ‘home videos and the joys of poor acoustics’ in Hoxton exhibition
Civic Sound Archive, 2022, Đỗ Thị Thanh and Nguyễn Thị Định. Photograph: Moi Tran
Hoxton Street’s PEER Gallery is hosting a new multimedia exhibition featuring sound, live performance, and more.
Civic Sound Archive is a solo exhibition by Hackney-based artist Moi Tran which explores how contemporary art and live performance coexist and intersect.
The exhibition is described as an “ongoing, process-driven project”, led by sound but featuring a website and recording booth to create a unique experience for visitors.
Tran said: “Civic Sound Archive celebrates the home-made video and joys of the poor acoustic. I am continuously rewriting this invitation to respond to questions and circumstances that people encounter in their experience of contributing.
“I am open to exploring multiple manifestations of this archive with the contributors. I imagine it to be open access and continuously open to new contributions. It will be a live and living archive.”
The exhibition sees Tran team up with people from predominantly East and South East Asian communities who have contributed audio and visual recordings of themselves reciting songs, prayers and poems in a variety of languages. It is a collection process that Tran has dubbed “sonic witnessing”.
The exhibition encourages people to explore how the sounds can be political, malleable and sculptural, and includes a purpose-built recording studio so visitors can add to the soundscape.
When asked about future plans, Tran said: “I will continue to work with sound and live encounter. I imagine I will be preoccupied with this medium for the foreseeable future!”
Tran was born in Vietnam in 1977 and now lives and works in Hackney. She has presented and performed her work nationally and internationally, but this is her first solo exhibition in an institutional setting.
Moi Tran – Civic Sound Archive runs until 3 September at PEER gallery, 97-99 Hoxton Street, N1 6QL. It is free to attend.