Get inside a ‘sound shower’ at the Wellcome Collection’s latest exhibition on the human voice

Amy Ashenden17 April 2016

A new exhibition exploring how the human voice reflects our physical, psychological and geographical identities has opened at the Wellcome Collection in Euston.

Looking inside our vocal tracts and minds, the exhibition explores what makes up the characters of our voices.

In an ‘acoustic journey’, This is a Voice looks at the meaning and emotions conveyed through speech patterns and non-verbal communication.

Artist Joan La Barbara, who is exhibiting a ‘sound shower’, said: “There are a quite a few sound artists – people who actually work in sound sculpture.

“I perform it live in concert but what you hear here is a manifestation which is pretty much invisible.

“You could easily walk past this sound shower and say ‘well, it’s an interesting sculpture’, but if you get inside it you can actually hear the physical sound.”

Curator Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz said: “We wanted to look at the sounds we produce, our voices, beyond a more traditional understanding of the voice in terms of linguistics and language.

“So we wanted to look at the voice before and beyond words – by that I mean the melody and things like volume and tone, but also gesture and expression and how that can add emphasis to your words or contradict them.

“And it was really important for us to look at non-verbal ways of communicating like laughing or screaming or singing, which is at the very core of the exhibition.

“We’ve been working with artists who understand the voice as if it was a sculpture material that they can somewhere manipulate.

“The voice locates us socially and geographically, for example accents, but also can say a lot about our emotional and physical health – for example developing a hoarse voice after a really stressful week.”

The exhibition is free and runs until July 31 2016 at the Wellcome Collection.

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