Daisy stewart-darling
AboutWorkshops
PROJECTS
Exploring memory through sound association to process grief.
Origami cranes accompanied by soundscape and interactive samples of home recordings.
// The Soundscape
In the early 1970s, my Grandparents moved to a patch of land just outside west London, living self-sustainable, and raising my mum and aunt in a caravan. Our family grew up in and around those woods and commons, and I attribute my happiest childhood memories to that space. This soundscape is composed of field recordings of that environment.
Feel free to sit and allow yourself to be immersed in the sounds you can hear in this recording. I find the more I listen, the more intricate patterns, melodies, and tones I notice that I wouldn’t normally.
// Interactive samples
These are snippets of recordings of times my family were all together.
You can choose to interact with them or not. Sounds can often trigger memories for us, good or bad. We may be made conscious of them through actively engaging or being aware of them in the background and choosing not to focus on them.
Having the ability to sonically capture memories through technology is such a
privilege, that in the grand scheme of time is still very recent. Having portable devices in our pockets to capture and preserve these memories, audibly or visually is also such a technological privilege we have access too. This is still not the case for many people across the world who do not have access to these devices, or a means of charging, or safely backing up digital recordings.
// 81 Cranes
Mid October 2023, my Grandmother suddenly passed away. She was 81.
The first few days, to cope with the debilitating shock, I started folding origami cranes. The repetitive, familiar movement of the folding was a helpful way to move through this time, allowing an alternative focus outside of trying to come to terms with the loss.
Having a mobile of suspended, frozen-in-flight birds feels like a pretty accurate display of grief. I think losing someone forces us to stop. Grief comes in waves of numbness and fight/flight responses of emotions, which is a way our brain works to protect us through trauma.
As a culture, I don’t think talking about or processing death is something we do very well, we seem to avoid it. Having this as the central focus offers an invitation to sit, and however uncomfortable it is, whatever memories come, be still, look at and allow this space to acknowledge loss.
Sonic environments we associate with the memories of people we’ve lost can be a healing part of processing grief. We can actively engage with audio recordings of people to preserve and revisit the memory of them. As is the case often with PTSD, sound association to experiences can trigger emotional responses, but I think there are ways in which we can do this to engage with difficult it to process grief, and revisit and work through those emotions.