Art that looks at feminism, song and the double meaning of "birds"

Date
28 May 2015

Few art projects merge feminism, singing, birds and the ecosystems of the Hebrides. Indeed, aside from Hanna Tuulikki’s Away with the Birds, we can’t think of another. The piece, made with arts organisation The Space, is a vocal score written for an all-female ensemble that takes inspiration from the landscape of the Hebrides to create a musical composition that mimics birdsong. This was initially performed on the island of Canna back in August last year, and arts organisation The Space has now commissioned artist Hanna to create a digital version for online audiences, launching this summer to continue the artist’s explorations of womanhood, nature and the online space as an environment in its own right. We had a chat with Hanna to find out more.

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Hanna Tuulikki: Away with the Birds score

“We came to think of the composition as an ecosystem, composed of balanced parts, or even an organism, with a spine, flesh and skin,” says Hanna. “The sum of the parts is greater than the whole. The harbour, our stage, was a natural amphitheatre, and the weather was our lighting and set design. But it was more than that: the island is alive. We made a live performance in a place that is living.”

"This period of time was about creating a safe space for exploration and experimentation with the voice and the body, what we could learn as individuals in relation to one another.”

Hanna Tuulikki

The artist’s drive to create the piece emerged from her interest in folk music – “more specifically, indigenous sound-making traditions from around the world, where the music appears to grow directly from people’s relationship with the land.” This led her to Gaelic music, which often looks to emulate birds’ sounds, and she set about creating a composition that could, in her words, “exist as a community of sounds, a sonic continuum or spectrum, which encompassed the-human-and-the-more-than-human-world.”

The “birds” of the title, though, have a double meaning. The piece is created only for female voices, relating to the original source material, says Hanna. “The Gaelic songs underpinning the score are nearly all sung from a woman’s perspective… As well as working with the score and learning the composition, this period of time was about creating a safe space for exploration and experimentation with the voice and the body, what we could learn as individuals in relation to one another.”

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Hanna Tuulikki: Away with the Birds illustration

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Hanna Tuulikki: Away with the Birds. Photo by Daniel Warren.

Creative Scotland approached Hanna and The Space about realising the piece (for which Creative Scotland were the main funders), and its life has continued beyond its remote performance to live on online. “I was aware that over the five years or so of working on Away with the Birds we had amassed a huge archive of drawings, sounds, video and more,” says Hanna. “The online platform gave me the perfect space to start to find a way to work creatively with this archive, in a non-linear way, re-authoring it to give it new life. I’ve been able to draw connections between my visual and audio work, linking for instance my hand-drawn score with relevant extracts from a performance of the composition.

"Online is a different way of thinking about an audience, we’re trying to find ways to allow people to be active in their choices, giving them space to interpret and play.”

Hanna Tuulikki

“We’re thinking of the online environment as another location. It’s an environment where people can explore and experience aspects of my work, perhaps in a less linear way than elsewhere. You are able to choose how and what you want to listen to, read about or watch. You can absorb as much or as little of the research and the background to the project as you like, you can simply play with my visual score, or just watch the films. It’s a different way of thinking about an audience, we’re trying to find ways to allow people to be active in their choices, giving them space to interpret and play.”

Above

Hanna Tuulikki: Away with the Birds. Photo by Daniel Warren.

Above

Hanna Tuulikki: Away with the Birds. Photo by Daniel Warren.

Above

Hanna Tuulikki: Away with the Birds. Photo by Daniel Warren.

Above

Hanna Tuulikki: Away with the Birds. Photo by Daniel Warren.

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About the Author

Emily Gosling

Emily joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in the summer of 2014 after four years at Design Week. She is particularly interested in graphic design, branding and music. After working It's Nice That as both Online Editor and Deputy Editor, Emily left the company in 2016.

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