Laura Hyland – NAVIGATOR Artist in Residence: In partnership with Improvised Music Company

Triskel is delighted to welcome Laura Hyland, NAVIGATOR Jazz Artist in Residence, in partnership with Improvised Music Company.

“I’m an artist and a composer-performer. I’m interested in our place in the cosmos, and the ideologies – past and present, that shape our understanding of ecology and the more-than-human world. My practice spans music-making (songwriting, contemporary composition & improvisation), and nature regeneration (food production, and biodiversity cultivation).

On a recent visit to Triskel Arts Centre in anticipation of my Navigator residency, I was deeply inspired by the space itself: its architecture, history and legacy. I want to explore aspects of the building and its story through various strands of my own practice.

I’ll begin composing a piece for 3 voices, utilizing the beautiful acoustics of the stairwell leading to the upper galleries of the church. The piece sets the inscription from a stained glass window in the gallery depicting a woman / mother / wife:

“She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her”.

Situating myself and fellow singers, Rebecca Collins & Eithne Ni Cathain vertically along the stairwell, the piece explores themes of feminism, patriarchy, and hierarchy, through the tradition of formally composed western art music. We’ll present this as a work-in-progress at the end of the residency.

In stark contrast to the formal architecture of the building, the courtyard garden offers up a small chink of potential for wildness and the more-than-human world. I’ll cordon off a small patch of ground, to be left to go ‘wild’ for the duration of my residency (spanning a month). I’m curious to see what grows here, and to document that growth over the month, watching for how the various lifeforms within (plants and insects/creatures) thrive, flounder, and organise themselves.

Reflecting this self-organising principal of all living things through music, I’ll host two improvised sessions on the portico of the church with fellow improvisers, Dan Walsh & Eimear Reidy, during which we’ll play freely, organising ourselves around each other: thriving, floundering, celebrating, supporting and challenging each other through sound.

Lastly, on the final day of the residency, I’ll give a solo concert of songs for voice & guitar in the main church space. The result of a lifelong songwriting practice,  these songs are personal, subjective, at times spiritual, and in essence, humble in the face of the unknown. Offered up in the same spirit of vulnerability as the many souls who have worshipped in Christchurch down the centuries, these songs are my prayers of faith, hope &  wonder at the mysteries, beauty, and contradictions of our existence.”

NAVIGATOR Jazz Residency, in partnership with Improvised Music Company

This residency offers jazz and improvising musicians professionally remunerated time and space to develop their practice, while building creative and professional relationships in new locations through local engagement and performance opportunities.