Memories float for a moment and then fall
15 November 2024 – 18 January 2025
Wednesday-Saturday 12-5pm
The exhibition is closed from end of Friday 20 December 2024 and re-opens on Wednesday 8 January 2025
Shino Yanai explores the plasticity of sound and its power to create fresh or imagined memories. This new Beaconsfield commission is an evolving installation and invites Ken Ikeda (Tokyo) to collaborate in the exhibition and perform in London.
The remote collaboration between Yanai and Ikeda emphasises the concept of distance in relation to time and location, employing field recordings, improvised composition, film, video, voice, prepared piano and electroacoustic instruments. Ikeda responds to Yanai’s visual imagery with sound compositions from Tokyo, that are woven into Yanai’s material installation in London. In early December, Ikeda will travel to London to improvise in real time, in a performance with Yanai. Their live, sonic interaction will be captured, and the recording re-woven into the exhibition environment. Later, a limited-edition vinyl record will be produced by Beaconsfield.
Memories float for a moment and then fall explores the capacity of auditory experience to stimulate imaginative reconstructions of historic events, occurrences and identity. Such ‘memories’ are expressions of a yearning to know, or fantasies rooted in hearsay or reminiscence. The installation creates a place and time where we can imagine narratives or events that we have neither witnessed nor experienced.
This project has been made possible through the kind support of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and Japan Foundation London.
Events with Ken and Shino:
Workshops for schools, 18 – 29 November 2024.
Schools local to Beaconsfield are invited to participate in sound workshops led by Shino Yanai. Contact naomi@beaconsfield.ltd.uk.
Workshop for sound enthusiasts, Wednesday 4 December 2024, 2-4pm.
This is a rare opportunity to work with Ken and Shino in real life. Bring your favourite sound or instrument and mobile phone, if you have one. Book here for tickets.
Ken Ikeda + Shino Yanai Performance, Saturday 7 December 2024. Doors open 7.30pm.
Ken Ikeda visits London for a rare improvised performance with Shino Yanai: voice, video, prepared piano, electroacoustic. Book here for tickets.
Images: (i) Shino Yanai, 1980s cine-still. (ii) Well Temperament, 2021, Video. Yushima Seido (The Mausoleum of Confúcius at Yushima), Tokyo. Photo: Jun Kawada, Shinya Aoyama.