Sun at Night – Shilpa Gupta

Experimental sound artist, Shilpa Gupta explores the sonic experience of incarceration and quarantine in her most recent exhibition at the Barbican, Sun at Night. Using poetry and depictions of moments when a collective or individual narrative is silenced and withheld, Gupta frames tools and materials of communication as not only a glimmer of hope but also as weapons to be used (example: Untitled ((Tower of Broken Pencil Points)). Gupta additionally looks through the pandemic and lockdown and relates the themes of isolation and restricted movement to explore how the idea of sound and listening for one changes. Using items like motion flap boards, books, and bottles, I can interpret and understand the use of environments and vessels of stagnation can result in a heightened sense of awareness and emotion. The heart of the exhibition, For In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, focuses on the restriction of expression in these implied areas of control and resistance in moments of forced confinement. For this installation, across a large, dimly lit room, one hundred microphones were spread across the room, hung above written notes pierced through metal spikes. The dim lighting made it difficult to read and understand, let alone the fact that they were in all different languages. Through this, I understand Gupta is simulating these moments of confinement by highlighting the difficulty and restriction of expression for these artists spread out across the globe. Walking around the space, recordings of various voices swept across the room, interacting with each other from time to time. One voice would speak out in a different language, one would respond in another, and suddenly the whole room would break out in song, repeating this process in various motions throughout the exhibition. Though most of these recordings I could not understand, the harmony, the union, the interaction of them emphasize the expression that is being silenced and hidden, I did not need to understand what they were saying. (sidenote: I wonder if this alludes to a point of post-pandemic listening as well. Understanding tone, timbre, cadence, etc., aside from language.) From this exhibition, I take the understanding of sound in a moment, in a space, and reflect on the way it can be used, changed, and understood. I also take a moment to hear these silenced voices think in a way similar to her sculpture, Untitled (Interlocked books), depicting the exchange of information and how voices give strength to one another.