Ann Hamilton Paper Chorus

Organized by Dieu Donn in collaboration with Bang on a Can

“My new weaving is a crossing of voices and time to form a cloth of embodied remembering.” — Ann Hamilton

Ann Hamilton, one of the world’s great installation artists, was invited to participate in a residency at Dieu Donn, a New York City-based visual artists workspace, which supports the use of handmade paper in the creation of new art. At the organization’s “wet studio,” Hamilton created a series of handmade abaca paper forms with embedded textiles designed to be worn on the body. Recognizing how the works’ visual presence was transformed when activated by the body in motion, the artist began to conceive the works not as static objects, but as musical instruments. The paper components rustle, rattle, and reverberate when worn.

In a collaboration with Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, Hamilton explored sound vocabularies of paper of reading of singing in a concert at MASS MoCA on July 29, 2014. The handmade paper components installed in the gallery are some of those worn by Bang on a Can musicians during the Paper Chorus concert.

Read more about Hamilton’s residency at Dieu Donn here.

photo by Caleb Blansett