Colette Copeland | Soundings
Exhibition Dates: 11/07/23 – 12/12/23
Gallery Hours: Work activated from sunset to sunrise each day, (7:30pm – 6:30am)
ICOSA Collective is proud to present Soundings, a collaborative audio work by Colette Copeland with sound engineering by Mark Menza.
Soundings is a collaborative community-based experimental sound installation, focusing on amplifying Texas voices that have historically been silenced, specifically female, non-binary and queer voices. Over the past year in Texas with the loss of women’s rights through the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, as well as the proposed legislation that threatens LGBTQIA+ rights, I feel it is important for our voices to be heard.
Each participant was asked to choose a phrase or series of phrases that is meaningful for them and what they wish to sound out into the universe. If they speak more than one language, they sounded in multiple languages. Their voices are then composited into a mini symphony, resembling a chant or mantra, symbolizing a reclamation of power. I’ve been humbled and honored to be a witness as collaborators find their power through vocalization and sounding.
Colette Copeland is an interdisciplinary visual artist and cultural critic/writer whose work examines issues surrounding gender, death, and the complicated landscape of human relationships. Sourcing personal narratives and popular media, she utilizes video, sound, photography, performance, and sculptural installation to question societal roles and the pervasive influence of media, and technology on our communal enculturation. She employs experimental narrative techniques to uncover hidden histories that allow for critical discourse. Her work provides a conduit for cultural memory, questioning how we engage in acts of remembrance.
Over the past 31 years, her work has been exhibited in 34 solo exhibitions and 156 group exhibitions/festivals spanning 36 countries. She received her BFA from Pratt Institute in New York and her MFA from Syracuse University. She teaches contemporary art/studio practices, performance art and digital photography at University of Texas in Dallas, Texas as well as writes for Glasstire, and Arteidolia online publications. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholar Research Award for 2023/2024 working with female artists in India. She proudly admits to providing her children with years of “therapy” fodder.
More information about the project and the collaborators, click this link Soundings Project
Gallery Hours: Work activated from sunset to sunrise each day, (7:30pm – 6:30am)