This April, Solbjerg Plads will turn into the Sun-Mountain Square, transformed by artist Victoria Mingot’s immersive sound installation ‘They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds’.
32 speakers are installed below ground all around the city square of Solbjerg Plads on Frederiksberg, allowing musicians and sound artists to create multidimensional soundscapes on the multichannel sound system.
Victoria Mingot has created an ambient soundscape of strings: Sounds planted like seeds in the ground, and growing from the sound wells like sprouts, in a spherical blooming.
‘They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds’ will be playing three times a day Monday to Friday, and twice Saturday and Sunday. Just show up, let the sounds bloom from the ground all around you and experience how the square transforms, spring-like.
The title of the sound installation is a quote from the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenas – and the piece is inspired by imagery from a small cemetery in the Palestine region that suddenly had a sea of yellow wildflowers growing upon it (video by Hatem H. Rawagh).
Victoria Mingot writes this about her inspirations for the work:
“An ocean of bright yellow wildflowers bloomed, welcoming spring and surprising visitors visiting their loved ones in a small cemetery in Gaza. Despite the dust and raw wreckage from the relentless destruction around the area, the land needed no permission to bloom its life and extend its beauty. Nature, in her resilience, needs no permission for her blossoms and sprouts.
This work is a reminder that innocence has not yet perished, though the oppressor may try to force riotous silence. We will bloom with compassion aloud in our hearts anyway, through the dust.
May the remembrance of all of the children, from east to west, south to north, like our own sons and daughters, be seeds in our hearts for the blossoming of collective strength, resistance against the wrongs, and deep heartful care during these tough times of the world. Even if hope may seem buried or far, spring will always unfold its gifts. May we be like the wildflower.”
About Victoria Mingot
Victoria Mingot is a New York born artist forging both experimental hardcore tekno music and experimental classical guitar recordings. Her current commission for Lydbrøndene is a raw improvisational recording of two zithers and nylon guitar. Strings are sculpted through pedals and effects, questing what lies beneath the surface of the current timescape. Ambiental fluidity opens to contemplation and soft redemption.
