Installations + Performance :
Session One : 21 March 2025 Friday 7pm
Session Two : 22 March Saturday 3:30pm
Session Three : 22 March Saturday 6pm
Session Four : 23 March Sunday 3:30pm
Session Five : 23 March Sunday 6pm
£5 | 6 places only each session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets.
Running time : 20 minutes visual and audio installations + 20 minutes performance
The River in You / Runs Right Through / BODY TALKS (2023-2024) by Joanna Penso (UK) were selected from DIVFUSE Sound Archive No. 5 Open Call for work that is based on field recordings.
Projection Diptych, 2023 & 2024, 2 channel audio through speakers, projection Runs Right Through 2024 explores the possibilities of listening to nature through the body. Along the banks of the River Don, Sheffield, this piece was made using field recordings taken with a hydrophone dipped into the water, and a stethoscope microphone which captures vibrations of the water seeping into the body, being heard amongst the breath, the heartbeat and digestion.
A meandering sonic journey through the waterways of the body, The River in You 2023 explores the human relationship with water in both the internal and the external. Careering through orifices, tubes and organs this ambient soundscape celebrates the journey water takes into and out of the body, transforming audio recordings taken with a stethoscope microphone into a meditative experience for the listener/viewer.
BODY TALKS 2024 is a live performance piece born out of a period of experimentation during a programme of activity funded by Arts Council England (Develop Your Creative Practice fund, DYCP). Through live amplification of the body this work looks to explore the inner and outer self in relation to performer and audience. Several microphones are strapped to the performer’s body, twisted into a central ‘umbilical cord’ which denotes the limitations of the performance area. Playing with microphone feedback moves the performer to explore the limits of what she can physically and sonically withstand whilst shadow play distorts her physical presence to the audience.
Joanna Penso is an artist from York, UK based in East London working with sound led experiments in performance, installation, film & radio programmes. Penso’s practice explores human connection and challenges societal barriers using tools of absurdity & body politics. Using a mixture of recording apparatus and techniques including stethoscope microphones, her practice centres the body; celebrating the sonic landscape rumbling beneath the skin as a vehicle to discuss our relationship to ourselves, to one another and to the environment.
Her work has been featured in exhibitions in York (Aesthetica 2023), London (Nunnery Gallery Me2U 2023), Newcastle and St Ives, Cornwall. She was a recipient of the 18th round of DYCP fund granted by Arts Council England in 2024, and was a resident on artist radio station RTM.fm with her show The Symphony Beneath the Skin.
www.joannapenso.com | @joannapenso
Image by Joanna Penso
