Jenna Burchell: Artwork Commission
The Songsmith project explores how to re-connect people to each other and to the world around them by activating the exquisite cracks, places and objects that narrate the beauty of life lived. The Songsmith project is unfolding over time in different objects, places and countries. Artist Jenna Burchell shaped the word Songsmith (n. v.phr.) in her practice to refer to a golden instrument that she uses to repair or transform an object or place in order to reveal an aural narrative. In creating a Songsmith artwork Burchell follows a method based on the Japanese art and philosophy of Kintsukuroi; this is the art of repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer, and in so doing the acknowledging that piece is more beautiful for having been broken and showing it’s time-worn history. The artist borrows from Kintsukuroi both visually and philosophically to allude to the passing of time in her work. Concurrently the songsmith repair has a functional reason; by forging a songsmith into an object or place it becomes a sensor. It is because of this that Burchell is able to create an interactive archive, holding within a song of time and memory: a song that can be revealed when the audience bring their hands near to the Songsmith artwork.
“I relate my Songsmith artworks to ritualistic, artefacts of modern storytelling; they allow me to reveal hidden landscapes of knowledge, experience and memory to new audiences. I feel that a completed Songsmith’s beauty lies in its fluency between; the real world and digital technology, storytelling and people, contemporary art and untold history” - Jenna Burchell
In late 2015 Burchell began work on a triptych in her Songsmith project: a triptych made from ancient rocks found in three prehistoric, geographic locations: the Cradle of Humankind, The Great Karoo, and the Vredefort Dome. Burchell chose these sites as they each represent a moment of time wherein the world shifted: they are markers of change in our ancient history. The ancient rock triptych is formed into three collections named after their geographic locations. At each location Burchell embarks on an expedition to collect and archive ancient fractured rocks. In each collection a rock is selected following four rules:
A rock must be found within the relevant geographic site;
A rock must be naturally fractured in two or more pieces;
The fractured pieces must become a single whole;
A rock must be beautiful in form once made whole.
Each completed artwork is titled with the GPS co-ordinate of where the corresponding rock was found. This co-ordinate is engraved onto the plinth. At these locations, with the help of geophysicists, Burchell records the ground’s electromagnetism and translates it into harmonic, mathematical tonalities. Each song represents a recording of the layers of earth going down six meters beneath the rock’s final resting place: eons of time in geological terms. This allows each rock to sing a song unlike any that can be heard: a voice of time.
