An episode in a Radio 4 series called Pursuit of Beauty...
Artist featured: Peter Shenai
approximately 30 min
My daughter sent me a link to this; I suppose I only clicked on it because it was from her...
Bells made by artist Peter Shenai
from Hurricane Katrina data are rung in New Orleans.
I learned that Peter has been spending years creating a new kind of art that viscerally brings climate disruption into human understanding. For his latest project, he wanted to focus on something with a specific location and a specific story behind it and began to look at the feasibility of turning a hurricane into a bell.
He chose Hurricane Katrina, the giant storm that devastated New Orleans in 2005, and set about transforming raw weather data from the hurricane into a series of bells.
Well that got my attention. Now I’m curious...
The episode follows him over two years as he struggles to create this aural experience. I was immediately charmed by Peter's excitement. I smile when he finds significance in hearing ringing bells as he walks down the street, en route to his first meeting with Carlo Corsaro, a atmospheric physicist at Imperial College London. Carlo would go on to help him with 3D rendering of the data.
The concept of the project was to use the weather data to cast bells that intimately link to a specific moment in Katrina's development - these would then be taken to New Orleans and a number of people, who lived through the storm, would ring each bell.
Nice.
As Peter gets data and 3D forms from Carlo, he wonders with the audience what the bells will eventually look and sound like ... something that remains a mystery for him for another 2 years. Fortunately for us listeners, we do not have to be so patient!
From the start, it is obvious that Peter's journey from raw data to ringing bells is not only a practical one. He leads us through his own personal journey of coming to understand the lasting impact of Katrina on individuals and communities and consequently the impact that his project may have.
This is a authentic and articulate young man and I was fully engaged with his journey. He speaks intimately with the audience about the weight of responsibility he feels in even making the bells, bringing with it an overwhelming sense of guilt. Although he feels the project is meaningful and important because it tells the human story behind the bells, it does also ask survivors to bring up traumatic experiences that probably haven't left them.
"This is a project that is ultimately about destruction and people's lives being ruined. Should I even do this?"
Despite setbacks, five bells are made.
And I am pleased that he succeeded as we do get to hear them!
They sound absolutely phenomenal; so many colours, so many different pitches, so many timbres.
But ... why bells?
Well, thanks to Peter's articulacy, I now feel able to paraphrase and answer that question.
Bells represent a kind of musical instrument that's unlike any other, say, orchestral musical instrument. They can signal alarm; they can be a cause for rejoicing; they can be a marker of memorial to bring us together in community. By using different weather data (such as wind speed, pressure etc), each bell comes to represent a particular time in Hurricane Katrina's development.
"Bells are often installed in places like towers and they are struck with a regularity that marks anniversaries - so they relate us to time, often even epochal time, and they relate us to memory. I want the first formal introduction of the bells to the public to be a symbol of the time that they represent and I want the memories that people talk about to be encoded in the bells so that whenever they are played after that, there is a sense of those bells broadcasting those memories."
As well as Peter and Carlo, we hear from New Orleanians from all walks of life, as their stories are woven throughout the programme. Finally, we hear them ring the uniquely resonant bells and reflect on what they mean for a still-recovering city.
And let's not forget that their story is ours.
Hurricane Katrina was a catastrophic event that likely hints at how widespread climate change could eventually affect the world.
A last word from one of the bell ringers:
"I am deeply touched that you are still thinking of us 13 years later. We didn't get the love and attention we needed from our own people. Not to be forgotten is an important thing. This is a form of story telling. Without storytelling this is lost."
My final thoughts:
Disruptions in how the brain processes time and memories during and after trauma are the essence of traumatic stress disorders.
Thus, these Hurricane Bells may be able to act on many levels to not only bring together and engage communities, but to also be a healing form of story telling, similar to what is done in re-living treatment.
As someone that has experienced trauma and has been through re-living treatment, I found this to be entirely believeable.
Everything I heard in this programme rang true to me!
This has broad appeal and is relevant to everyone.