Aesthetica Art Prize Finalists Exhibition 24 March to 4 June 2023 York Art Gallery
@aestheticamag
In the White Dawn
Metal notes are created from lark song recordings in 'In The White Dawn', an installation inspired by poetry and interactions with the natural world, which is shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2023.
Photo: Charlotte Graham Photography
FINALIST AESTHETICA ART PRIZE 2023
I am delighted that my installation ‘In the White Dawn’ has been shortlisted for the 2023 Aesthetica Art Prize and will feature in the Future Now 2023 anthology.
The Aesthetica Art Prize brings together 21 award-winning artists who invite you to explore, discover and engage with themes from our rapidly changing world; including the ethics of representation, mass digitisation, globalisation, diasporic identities and the continuing threats posed by the climate crisis.
https://aestheticamagazine.com/the-aesthetica-art-prize-2023-shortlist-announced/
Delighted to be included in the Future Now Anthology and Aesthetica magazine.
Members of the Royal Society of Sculptors based in London, have gathered to make work in response to and in order to reflect upon what it means to have a sculptural practice in today’s times, in the context of war and climate change. At a time when the world is on the edge of uncertainty, how and why should we respond as artists?
I will be exhibiting a new work entitled Song of a Far Memory
Delighted to be a member of ArtCan. ArtCan is an artist-led, non-profit arts organisation with members across Britain and internationally. More about this wonderful organisation https://www.artcan.org.uk/
Cues for Birdsong selected for inclusion in Axisweb Art Highlight more
Delighted to be taking part in the TERRA exhibition “... These 48 ‘Earth Ambassadors’ with their poetic yet poignant creative approaches to the theme TERRA, aim to engage the public with environmental issues through the arts and to inspire and empower more artists and audiences to engage and respond to the climate crisis.....” more information here
Free, All Welcome RSVP here
Artwork details Cues for Birdsong here and Silent Echoes (Birdsong) here
WELLS ART CONTEMPORARY | Exhibition runs 30 July to 28 August 2022
Everyone was a Bird – Site-specific installation in Wells Cathedral
Extract from Making you think and reflect by Andrea Cowan | Bath Chronicle 4 August 2022 … The joy of this exhibition is that everyone will find something that they are really drawn to. For me, Everyone was a Bird by Caro Williams struck a cord. Suspended in the porch to the Friends Building, this remarkable installation “is inspired by birds whose songs we no longer hear plus birds whose songs are in danger of being lost such as the Skylark, Nightingale and sound thrush,“ says Caro. The title is from a line in Siegfried Sassoon‘s First World War poem, Everyone Sang, which recalls voices and song we no longer hear. Caro brings this together with the images of prayer beads, the visionary creation of sound waveforms from a moment in the dawn chorus and a QR code providing a personal sound experience of Birdsong recordings. It is mesmerising.
I’m thrilled ‘Silent Song’ has been selected for inclusion in the Royal Society of Sculpture Summer Exhibition.
The Summer Show will feature work by members of the Society and the guest judge for 2022 is the curator and cultural producer, Isabel de Vasconcellos who also writes on contemporary art, photography and design. Isabel is Director of Sculpture for Messums Wiltshire and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. more
Axisweb Art Highlights
Very pleased to have work included in this selection Link
Delighted Cues for a Poem has been selected for inclusion in The Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition Online
22 April to 12 June 2022 Link
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Call and Response
Dawn chorus field recordings with Morse code translation of ‘Returning we hear the Larks’ by Isaac Rosenberg
Very pleased this work has been selected as an @axisweb Five2Watch: Field Recordings
Call and Response links the landscapes of the Salisbury Plain and a vast tract of historic land in New Zealand through intertwining birdsong punctuated by a Morse code rendition of a WW1 poem. Sound sample here
Exeter Museum – Museum at Large Public Art Commission
Lark Song, 2021
Metal song notes, ribbon, blue floodlights, soundtrack (lark song)
I‘m thrilled to have been selected for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum – Museum at Large commission. I will be working with the museum’s Fine Feather gallery to create an installation in the adjoining Rougemont gardens, Exeter 29-31 October 2021
I question softly why I failed (detail above) has been selected for inclusion in
the Royal Society of Sculptors Summer Exhibition.
Additional images here
Lockdown – Echoes of Birds and Words
Words from a journal (2nd word of each line) and birdsong written and recorded during lockdown
Really pleased this sound work has been included in the Arts Terrirtoy Exchange and Muck (Must Use Critical Knowledge) Sound Library..
Artists from around the world were invited to provide sound works reflecting on their own territories, the fantasy of other places, the excitements and restrictions of proximity and distance, and works reflecting current social distancing prior to and beyond Covid 19.. Listen here
Waterfall Sonata
Waterfall Sonata selected for inclusion in Automated, Fringe Arts Bath 2020
In the Silent Air
In the Silent Air, selected for inclusion in Fabrizio Paterlini – Piano Microstories – The Eighth Note Publication.
A compilation of poetry and photography in response to music
Sound Mapping – Birdsong
Soundscape, Hekerua Bay 36.7797o 175.0240o
Sound Mapping – Birdsong is being shown with Arts Territory Exchange in the A Stitch in Time Exhibition at Today Art Museum, Beijing. The show is part of Documents Today an international ongoing triennial exhibition.
Arts Territory Exchange, A Stitch in Time Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing, 13.12.19 to 15.3.20
Acoustic markers for birdsong, film still.
Film still from site recordings made in Iceland with sound markers.
“Soundscapes describe a place, a sonic identity, a sonic memory, but always a sound that is pertinent to a place” – R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: the Tuning of the World
‘Put this in your window and think of me' Arts Territory Exchange
Thrilled to be exhibiting in this dual location exhibition in Cambridge between the Dept of land Economy Cambridge University and Cambridge Artworks Gallery. The exhibition curated by @artsterritoryexchange and @artlanguagelocation explores themes of land, territory and 'ownership'. My piece, Sound Mapping – Birdsong, is being shown @cambridge.artworks.
Delighted that The Blue Hour has been selected selected for inclusion in Axisweb's weekly 'Highlights' section. link Axisweb Highlights
Caro Williams – detail from The Blue Hour (2019) Mixed media installation Contemporary Art + Ritual, Crypt Gallery, London
Brass and steel sound notes created from dawn chorus recordings taken in during the blue hour, brass bells, silk thread, chain, metal sound boxes playing birdsong, blue light
Dawn chorus recordings fill the space both aurally and visually. A single bell rings in the silence between one bird chorus and the next.The Blue Hour draws from the French expression L’heure bleue alluding to the strange and elusive moments be- tween night and day when the natural world is silent. It is after these moments of silence when light covers the darkness and the blue appears that the dawn chorus begins.
Extract from Matt Bray Arts exhibition review …Exploring nature’s own daily rituals was Caro Williams’ installation called ‘The Blue Hour’ which immerses you in blue light and the sound of birds singing their morning chorus. Laser cut sound waves of brass and steel, presumably of the birdsong itself, are suspended in the space on chains in vertical configurations, giving a visual signifier of the aural landscape. The sensory effect is particularly entrancing in the silence and isolation of the crypt – a magical and transporting experience…..
Detail from The Blue Hour, A mixed media installation with sound, light and objects by Caro Williams.
Contemporay Art + Ritual curators Caro Williams (left) and Deborah Burnstone
Crypt Gallery, London NW1 2BA, 16-21 May 2019, Opens daily 10am – 6pm, Free admission The Crypt Gallery’s labyrinthine passageways are the setting for a multi-media exhibition exploring ritual in today’s society. https://artandritual.wixsite.com/mysite
Contemporary Art + Ritual is an artist-led experimental exhibition exploring ritual in the broadest sense in today’s society.
Encompassing sound, light, word via dust, wood, thread and more the show reveals ritual to be an expression of human life that is undergoing a process of constant reinvention. The Crypt’s atmospheric brick vaulted corridors will take the viewer on a journey through healing, wishing, weaving, walking, cleaning, carving, folding, painting. A giant gold chain fashioned from bread snakes across the floor of a dark vault, two spectral life-sized figures made of dust hang from the ceiling, a ghostly woman conjures magpies from nowhere. In one chamber metal boxes emit birdsong reminding us of the passage of daily life, and in another hundreds of wishes are beamed out into the darkness.
The show is curated by artists Caro Williams and Deborah Burnstone.
Artists:
Rosalind Barker, James S Bond, Deborah Burnstone, Zara Carpenter, Blandine Martin, Elspeth (Billie) Penfold, Zoe Simons-Walker, Hannah Stageman, Sally Tyrie, Nneka Uzoigwe, Jane Walker, Caro Williams
Additional details:
https://artandritual.wixsite.com/mysite
Exhibition catalogue + publicity design Bob Mytton http://myttonwilliams.co.uk
About the Exhibition:
Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. For some, rituals are inextricably associated with the practice of a religion; for others a ritual is an action performed on a regular basis – personal or cultural. This is an Open Call to participate in an experimental exhibition exploring how ritual in the broadest sense manifests itself in today’s society.
This is an artist-led opportunity. We are looking for 10 fellow contemporary artists to join us.
All mediums will be considered – painting, sculpture, film, sound, installation and performance.
Organising artists/curators:
Caro Williams & Deborah Burnstone
Artelier Circulaire, Montreal, Canada | 9 November to 15 December 2019
Opening of Cicatrix Imprimé at Artelier Circulaire, Montreal
Review by Louise Inkel, November 10, 2018
Handkerchiefs and postcards. Fragments of poem and dawn choruses. And even a bear cub... Yet such gentleness is deceptive. For the travelling exhibition Cicatrix, now showing at Circulaire, deals with military conflict. WW1 specifically, as experienced by people. One century after Armistice, Cicatrix presents ghostly images of soldiers, mostly young men, resigned to do their duty with dignity. Amidst the fury, pictured by scar drawings and etchings, they think of their loved ones. They listen to the larks singing and express, through poems, their intense suffering and their hopes of tasting life once again. The artworks displayed by Cicatrix’ six artists are moving in their statement and important as a reminder of that which cannot be forgotten.
Mouchoirs et cartes postales. Bribes de poèmes et choeurs de l’aube. Et même un ourson... Mais cette douceur est trompeuse. Car l’exposition itinérante Cicatrix, qui se tient présentement à Circulaire, traite de conflit armé. De la Première Guerre mondiale en particulier, telle que vécue par des humains. Un siècle après l’Armistice, Cicatrix présente des images fantômatiques de soldats, des jeunes hommes pour la plupart, résignés à faire leur devoir avec dignité. Au coeur de la furie, illustrée par des gravures et des dessins balafrés, ils pensent à leurs amours. Ils écoutent le chant des alouettes en exprimant, par des poèmes, leur intense souffrance et leur espoir de goûter encore à la vie. Les oeuvres des six artistes de Cicatrix sont émouvantes par leur propos et importantes en ce qu’elles rappellent ce qui ne peut être oublié.
Echoes of a Dawn Past (detail) by Caro Williams
Fragments of a poem and the dawn chorus in brass, WW1 lantern transmitting Returning, We Hear the Larks by Isaac Rosenberg in Morse code intemingled with dawn chorus ecordings made on the Salisbury Plain where the soldiers trained before being sent to the Front.
Installing Cicatrix Imprimé at Artelier Circulaire, Montreal
Caro Williams will join fellow Cicatrix artists for an exhibition at Atelier Circulaire Gallery in Montreal. Exhibition dates 9 November to 15 December 2018
Cicatrix Walk and Talk at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
Cicatrix artists Henny Burnett, Susan Francis, Prudence Maltby and Caro Williams are joined by Katie Ackrill in a lively ‘walk and talk’ around their exhibition at SM&AG. Explore the legacy of WWI through striking and poignant multimedia artworks, created in response to the scarred landscape of Salisbury.
CICATRIX Exhibition at the Swindon Museum & Art Gallery, 12 September to 1 December 2018
Opening 13 September 6-8pm
Five2Watch: NEON
Caro Williams included in AXISWEB #Five2Watch
CICATRIX: CALL AND RESPONSE
Town Hall Arts, Market Street, Trowbridge, BA14 8EQ
Artist Talk, Saturday 17 March 2018, 1-2pm (admission free)
23 February - 14 April, 2018
Opening 22 February 2018, 6-8pm
Join us for some Earl Grey Gin Teas in the interrogation cells
Caro Williams installing Call and Response in the Cells, Trowbridge Town Hall
(Photo: Bob Mytton)
Additional information images | sound samples
Cicatrix: Call and Response
Art and conflict have gone hand-in-hand for centuries. The power of visual imagery to communicate with such immediacy makes it the perfect cultural platform through which we remember and acknowledge the impact of confit. As such, images of violence, destruction, remembrance and commemoration dominate our historical and contemporary reality. Less frequent, however, are artworks considering the legacy of confit, and the ongoing scarring that shapes our existence.
Cicatrix: Call and Response is thus a truly significant and powerful exhibition, which brings together work by four artists, who are responding to the legacy of the Great War through the wounded landscape of Salisbury Plain...
... Down in the Cells, the usual eerie silence is filled by the bird song of Caro Williams’ Call and Response. This immersive sound installation, which inspired the title of the exhibition, links the landscape of Salisbury Plain to a vast area of historic land in New Zealand. Birdsong recorded in both landscapes is punctuated by a Morse code transmission of one of Isaac Rosenberg’s most popular war poems Returning, We Hear the Larks. Williams’ piece represents an important development in Cicatrix’s endeavour to look at the legacy of the Great War on an international level, and considers the collective history and scarring shared by distant lands.
Text: Katie Ackrill, Curator Trowbridge Arts
Dawn Vigil — Silo
Dawn Vigil — Silo
Dawn Vigil — Silo
A vigil by Caro Williams
SHIFTING GROUND OFF-SITE: THAMES, LONDON
SHIFTING GROUND
8-15 October 2017, Silo 6, Jellicoe Street, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland
9th October 2017, 4.30-7.30am, Dawn Vigil — Silo, Thames, London
Dawn Vigil — Silo, London
Drawing from Voice: Voice Font, Inaudible Recital,Sound Castle, Props for Conversation
included in Axisweb 'Text' Category of the Wee
These works represent coded language systems. One of the key themes that run through much of my work is the idea of creating visual codes to represent missing nuances such as the unseen or the unheard or perhaps just things we don’t usually consider.
Call and Response, Study in Brass, included in Axisweb 'Metalwork' Category of the Week
Caro Williams included in the new feature on Axisweb called 'Category of the Week'. Each week they'll be taking a look at an artwork category and featuring works by their members that have been tagged using this category. link
Call and Response Exhibition
8 to 28 April 2017
David Nathan Park, Nathan Homestead, Manurewa, Auckland
Call and Response, Opening at David Nathan Park, Nathan Homestead, Manurewa, Auckland (Photo: Laura Peters)
Caro Williams will be exhibiting her sound installation Call and Response in the gardens of the Nathan Homestead in the David Nathan Park, Auckland
Call and Response links the military landscapes of two far flung countries through birdsong and poetry. The dawn chorus recordings from New Zealand were made at Fort Takapuna Historic Reserve, Auckland and those from England at the site of the Bulford Kiwi on Salisbury Plain during my recent artist residency. The giant Kiwi, carved into the chalk by New Zealand troops impatient to return home at the end of the First World War, remains perfectly preserved today.
STRANGE JOY
A visual | sound installation drawn from Isaac Rosenberg’s poem,
Returning, we hear the larks.
White Night Auckland 18 March 2017 from 6pm...
Call and Response Exhibition
The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, Havant, UK
9 January - 7 April 2017
Huia Song Remembered, Imago Mundi, New Zealand Kiwi Consciousness
IMAGO MUNDI Benetton World Art | Kiwi Consciousness
Caro Williams was invited to submit a work for Imago Mundi international art project -
TV New Zealand | Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival kiwi-artists-descend-southern-england-town| 9 June 2016
TV New Zealand comes to Ageas Salisbury International Arts Centre. I had the amazing opportunity of talking to TV NZ presenter Emma Keeling about my work Call and Response. To be broadcast on TV NZ One News, Arts and Culture, 11 June, 6pm
Call and Response (sound box NZ detail), more images, Sound Samples
Invitation to Call and Response Exhibition, Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival 2016
You are warmly invited to the opening of Call and Response on Friday 27 May at 5.30pm in the gardens of the Wardrobe Museum, Cathedral Close, Salisbury. In this second phase of Cicatrix the three artists, Henny Burnett, Susan Francis and Prudence Maltby have created new work to show alongside the sound installation from their cultural exchange guest, Caro Williams from New Zealand.
This exhibition marks the first leg of their journey to include artists from Commonwealth countries, remembering the troops representing these nations on Salisbury Plain since WW1. Cicatrix is supported by Arts Council England, Wiltshire Council, First World War Centenary Partnership, Imperial War Museum, and Creative New Zealand.
Gardens of the Wardrobe Museum, 27 May to 11 June 2016
Salisbury Plain with the Bulford Kiwi behind, preparing for my sound recordings
The Bulford Kiwi was carved into the land by the NZ troops waiting to return home after WW1
Residency on the Salisbury Plain
I am currently in the UK completing my sound installation, Call and Response, which links the military landscapes of the Salisbury Plain and a tract of historic land in New Zealand through intertwining birdsong punctuated by a Morse code transmission of a WW1 poem - Returning, We Hear the Larks by Isaac Rosenberg. The work is being exhibited at the 2016 Salisbury International Arts Festival before touring South West England and Auckland as part of the Cicatrix International Cultural Exchange Project. Amazing to have support from Creative New Zealand World War 1 Centenary (WW100) Co-commissioning Fund
An early morning start at Fort Takapuna Historic Reserve, Auckland....recording the dawn chorus for Call and Response
Ageas Sailsbury International Arts Festival Brochure 2017 details
Caro Williams receives Creative New Zealand World War 1 Centenary (WW100) Co-commissioning Fund
Funding received towards the development of my sound installation, Call & Response, which will be exhibited as part of the Cicatrix International Cultural Exchange, at the Salisbury International Arts Festival 2016 and the Nathan Homestead, Auckland 2017
Cicatrix
Caro Williams is invited to join Cicatrix International Cultural Exchange Artist Project 2016-2018
Cicatrix International Cultural Exchange is a contemporary visual arts collaboration focusing on WW1 between artists based in the Commonwealth countries: Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. The first of the collaborations is an exchange between UK and NZ and will be shown in Salisbury and Auckland.
Floating Poem details
Finalist Celeste Prize 7th Edition International Contemporary Art Prize
Floating Poem is exhibited in Milan and receives 2nd place in Photography and Digital Graphics Category
Opening and Awards Celebration | Saturday 14 November from 2.30pm | 14 to 22 November 2015 | Celeste Art at ex-BAZZI, via Dei Canzi 19-via Gaetano Crespi 26, Milan, Italy
ArtAscent - Spoken Word Pendant details
ArtAscent | Art & Literature Journal | June 2015 | Distinguished Artist Award
I am delighted to have received a Distinguished Artist Award for Flying Poem | Spinning Poem | Spoken Word Pendant
ArtAscent, Art and Literature Journal in response to the “Unknown” International call for entry.
A Pause of Suspension (detail) details
Finalist | 23rd Annual Wallace Art Awards | 2014
A Pause of Suspension selected to be part of the Traveling Finalists exhibition
The Annual Wallace Art Awards were established by Sir James Wallace for contemporary New Zealand painting, sculpture, video, drawing and unique photography and print to encourage and develop the visual arts in New Zealand, and in particular to reward artists creating outstanding work.
Awards judges: Andrew Clifford, Andrew McLeod, Peter Panyoczki, Terry Stringer and Linda Tyler.
A Wordless Song details
NZ Sculpture OnShore, Tenth Biennial Exhibition 6-16 November 2014
NZ Sculpture OnShore is a biennial exhibition of contemporary New Zealand sculptural work, held in Devonport, Auckland. The event raises funds to support Women's Refuge NZ and has so far donated $1.34m to help their work with the victims of domestic abuse.
I am exhibiting an installation entitled A Wordless Song inspired by Siegfried Sassoon’s poem Everyone Sang.
Songs From The Sky, Brick Bay Sculpture Park, New Zealand
Songs from the Sky
Installed at Brick Bay Sculpture Trail
October 2014 songs from the sky is up!
Songs for the Sky was exhibited at Brick Bay Sculpture Trail from 2014 to 2016
Field Notes (detail), Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke, Auckland
Auckland Art Gallery | Artist Talk | 20 August 2014
I will be giving an artist talk at the Auckland Art Gallery entitled:
Exploring the relationship between language, sound and form:
Carolyn Williams
Wednesday, 20 August 2014
10.30am
Auckland Art Gallery Auditorium