John Wynne – and quiet that splinters the winter
VP Studio (Stockwell Street Building, Lower Ground Floor)
Saturday: 10am-5.30pm
Sunday: 10am-4.30pm
This installation holds menace and beauty in a kind of cognitive dissonance. It is both a gesture of remembrance for those who have died in the war in Ukraine and a lament for the destruction of the natural environment that accompanies all wars. The title is from a poem by Anastasia Afanasieva, one of many contemporary Ukrainian writers exploring how – and if – poetry can respond to the Russian invasion of their country. In 2023, in collaboration with artist Denise Hawrysio, John experimented for a month in a former synagogue in Slovakia to ask the same question of art.
The devastating effects of the war on nature mirror the simultaneous human tragedies wrought by Putin’s senseless aggression. As Yevheniia Zasiadko from Ukrainian environmental group Ecoaction says:
“War affects our nature just as badly as our people and our infrastructure. But this damage remains unseen and mostly ignored, for the environment is the silent victim.”
In John’s installation, “the empty forest materialises as an archetypal landscape – wherever we are”. Yet we are not mere observers, outsiders here, we feel the experience in our bodies, on our skin. The trees are pulsating – we can hear our own breathing rumbling through our bodies. So might the forest appear to hunted game during the chase. And to a soldier running from the enemy.” (Katie Havran)
In sound terms, Wynne exploits the resonant frequencies of the space with shifting microtonal intervals that result in standing waves and beat frequencies that seem to carve and corrugate the very air we breathe. Floating in unlocatable high frequencies are the sounds of a violin, inspired by the proliferation of incongruous, heart-rending YouTube videos featuring Ukrainian soldier-violinists.
The image above is from Ukrainian War Collages, a set of collages by Denise Hawrysio which were part of the original installation in Slovakia. In First Day of School, what should be a moment of celebration and joy is contrasted with the bleakness of a winter forest, foreshadowing calamity—or the reality of a missing child.