Part 1: Virtual — We invited eleven artists from across the globe to create a wind chime. we sent each artist a web camera so that each chime could be live-streamed to our website. the chimes could be experienced simultaneously on the site, swaying and ringing in chorus with one another even though they are many thousands of miles apart.
Part 2: IRL — Artists of all mediums were invited via an open call to create their own wind chime. these chimes were installed by participants in the Vale of Cashmere, Prospect Park, NYC for a one-day event on Saturday, May 21, 2022.
(Video shows a wind chime made of shells and fabric for the IRL festival created by Emary Parisi and Bokeum Jeon. Video by Cindy Hwang.)
The wind chimes reveal themselves slowly. Beacons tucked into corners, on the next little ridge, up the path, hidden right above your head. You must keep your eyes peeled. Ask questions. Watch the flow of others on their visits and discoveries. The wind chimes and their creators surround you by the very fact of geology in the Vale of Cashmere. The vale is a dip in the earth, a hole created by a glacier melting 17,000 years ago and tearing rock and soil into an arena of blue and green. You walk in the center, around the pond, ringed by trees, braving short distances of sun. Each branch is a potential host. Some chimes scream for you from across an expanse. Large or loud. Others are experts in camouflage, as if they were species native to the Vale, perfectly blended. The chimes come in all forms and materials, hard and soft, objects recycled and refabricated to hang and collide with each other at the slightest disturbance. Without the wind blowing, they invite you to touch. You must graze, lightly prod, slightly destabilize them to release their sounds. Hear their rumbles and whispers, feel their different textures. The trees have alarms. The Vale is an instrument now.
