Publications + podcasts + artists talks
2023 Suzanne Close, Unravelling Encounters, (exhibition catalogue)
2022 Suzanne Close, Reading Between, (exhibition catalogue)
2020 Adele Sliuzas, exhibition catalogue, A line, a curve, a river, a song
2019 Artist talk for PechaKucha 20 x 20, South Australian Living Artist Festival (SALA)
Please view YouTube at 1hr:13min:58secs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4_QO_TZRrk&t=4165s
2019 Podcast with curator Adele Sliuzas (Small moments: the city wakes, the city sleeps) The Mill, https://soundcloud.com/user-303370204/the-mill-in-conversation-sonja-porcaro
2003 Dr Ilaria Vanni, Impermanent Narratives (exhibition catalogue for Under Warm Wood)
Sound work
https://soundcloud.com/sonja-porcaro/between-then-and-now-between-you-and-me-the-sunrise-the-sunset-the-city
The sound work, titled Tra allora e ora, tra te e me: l’alba, il tramonoto, la città (Between then and now, between you and me: the sunrise, the sunset, the city) was part of the installation/exhibition Small moments; the city wakes, the city sleeps at The Mill, Adelaide, 2019.
During a two month Residency at The Mill, my work responded to the site as both a physical space and as a site of diverse/dynamic social and cultural production and interaction, exploring also, daily rhythms and rituals enacted within the city of Adelaide. In making links between my own (childhood) memories connected to the city, particularly the Central and East End markets (visiting the markets before dawn with my (migrant) Italian parents to procure supplies for their fruit and vegetable store), the various languages spoken within the markets and beyond and that both The Mill and the markets sit on Kaurna land, the work- both the installation as a whole and the sound work- investigated ideas of history, place, memory and language, through a lens of both migration and post-colonialism.
The sound work comprises a 5 min 35 sec loop (on an iPod, heard through headphones) and an accompanying book on a shelf, with notes on participants. ‘The sunrise, the sunset, the city’ (or the closest equivalents/variations of) were spoken in 26 languages by 48 people recorded over 34 days (using my mobile phone) in and around the city of Adelaide (including the Central Markets) and in my daily interactions. Some people I recorded were strangers or travelers- meeting them for the first time, perhaps never to cross paths again- others I have known for months, years or decades. Some were adults, others, teenagers and children.
The Indigenous languages include Kaurna, Yankunytjatjara and Adnyamathanha and appear first in the book, in that order (and heard first in the above SoundCloud link). Languages I came across for the first time include Berber -the original language of Algeria- and Roviana- one of the languages spoken in the Solomon Islands. In some of the languages there is no word/exact translation for ‘city’, only a close equivalent eg. ‘big village’ (Roviana) and indeed the word ‘city’ was intentionally chosen as it is not, of course, in the (original) vocabulary of Indigenous languages of Australia. The work thus juxtaposes Indigenous (Aboriginal) languages with ‘successive’ languages- the languages of migrants (and refugees), with an acknowledgement of my own ‘mother tongue’ in the title, that is, speaking Italian before English. Within this, there is the idea of ‘the city’ as a construct (or at least in our Western understanding of the word) in this instance, on Kaurna land and with the work made intentionally in the Year of Indigenous Languages. The sound work- and the exhibition as a whole- is an acknowledgement then, of (multiple) histories (personal/social), pre and post-settlement: language, place, memory and childhood are interwoven and contested.
The handwritten notes in pencil in the accompanying book (see images in Gallery under Small moments: the city wakes, the city sleeps) give brief information on each participant- first names, language/languages spoken, country of origin, their relationship to their language, some brief translations if relevant, where I recorded them (markets, park, gallery, school) when (day, sunset, night time) and my relationship to that person. Some participants I spoke with for a few minutes, others for more than an hour, in learning of the significance of particular words- and the language as a whole- in relation to the broader experience of the participant’s cultural background/s, sense of identity and community (all three of the Indigenous language speakers are known to me and with two of them for example, I spoke with for an hour or so before recording them- one at their work place in the city, one at Colebrook Reconciliation Park near where I live, a very significant site for the participant and for myself and my family and for its broader cultural/historical resonance*).
In some of the languages there was more than one way of saying the words: sunrise, sunset, city. Mother and daughter for example, chose two different ways (in Croatian), recorded one after the other. In another instance, mother and daughter (in French) chose the same way. With the three participants from Iran, one spoke Arabic, two spoke Farsi. Local dialects/nuances/inflections within various languages became apparent. It is interesting to note too- partly informing my decision to choose the three words- that in many cultures, certain rituals are centred around those times of the day: sunrise/sunset (dawn/dusk) such as the Call to Prayer and the hours of fasting during Ramadan, that I have witnessed in various parts of the world.
Whilst the listening experience of the sound work for the exhibition was intimate (one person at a time through the headphones, the rhythm of individual languages and the rhythm of the combined languages, repeated) the voice at any given time didn’t (necessarily) match the notes on each participant being read in the book. With the sound work then, there was thus both an intimacy and a distancing, a recognition and estrangement, the play on the word ‘between’ in the title too, indicating both a (possible) connection, a shared experience and a (possible) impasse, complexity (things ‘coming between’) much like the complexity, layers of language itself. As one listens more though, the ear becomes attuned and the relationship between the languages and written notes comes to the fore. The work also asks then, Why is it that some languages are more recognisable, familiar, have currency, than others? What are the cultural- and political- implications of this? Languages erased, dormant, silenced, revived, revisited. Reparation, regeneration.
The work plays with different notions of time also- ‘then and now’ in the title- the ‘then’ could of course, indicate thousands, millions of years ago, or, the very moment before. Time, space, language(s) as elastic and fluid. The repetition and rhythm of language(s) themselves, also shifting notions of time and space.
Further, the ‘you’ in the title too, could refer to both an individual or collective you (in English) however, the ‘te’ in Italian refers only to the individual ‘you’ (‘vuoi’ being the term for the collective ‘you’), therein lying the complexity/beauty too, of translation and meaning.
The sound work then- and the exhibition as a whole- investigates these concerns, these tensions- both the familiar and the unfamiliar, the known and understood and the elusive, yet to be fully understood as we navigate our relationships to language, translation, memory, history, place; to community/communities and with each other.
Indeed, languages are ecosystems themselves- like the materials/forms employed in the exhibition- both robust and fragile, solid and tenuous, fragmentary, fluid, subject to change and ever evolving (languages endangered/revisited/ reawakened); requiring (our) attention and care.
*Please note that the Indigenous language speaking participants were offered payment for their contribution as often is this case that Indigenous people are asked to share cultural knowledge but are not always remunerated for this. Fees were based on suggestions by Indigenous staff at the Living Kaurna Cultural Centre here, Adelaide, SA.