Images: © Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
“LET THE RIVER LEAD YOU.
When you hear the hum of performers moving through the museum. Walk with us. We will be a procession of sounds: we are welcome to you. We travel while transmitting noise in response to each other
and the hallways of the institution.
The river once acted as a road - now we signal movement by murmuring. Like water we can harmonize and be discordant.
This sound is weighted by recognition of the people we carry with us.
We hold space for that— together.
Begin in monotone hum
unless you are moved by generations before you to do otherwise.
Remain clear and reverent. This is an awake hum in acknowledgment.
To acknowledge acts of violence that could leave us numb,
but must never leave us silent.
That constant of noise, that of swelling currents, is your voice.
From ever-shifting bodies of water we can build cities of bridges, map tributaries that unfurl forward and by following many rivers we can hear the call of those who preceded us.”
LET THE RIVER LEAD YOU is a fluxus-inspired performance work created through a collaboration between California-based artists— Katlyn Laster, April Martin, Derek Prado, Ameera Daaood, Maria Laura Hendrix, Amy Friedberg, and Sherwin Rio— with the Carnegie Museum of Art for the 57th Carnegie International’s University Night with Postcommodity in Pittsburgh, PA. Drawing upon the location of Pittsburgh, a city of bridges positioned on converging rivers, the performers created a metaphorical river by inviting other museum visitors to join them as they flowed in and out of rooms containing work acquired throughout the Carnegie International, humming together in processional body. With the impetus to hum centered around remembering and presently carrying the past, the drone of voices started at first in unison and organically evolved into a loud discordant chorus of vocalized mourning, joy, timidity, frustration, and (ir)reverence before calming back into a near silent hum at the Hall of Sculpture where the performance began.
Duration: Approximately 30 minutes.