Restorative Kindness: Laura Hyland reflects on her Navigator residency at Triskel Arts Centre

My Navigator residency took place at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork city over 8 days (two days a week for four weeks in July & August). On visiting the Triskel in advance of the residency, I was deeply inspired by the space itself and its spiritual, cultural and ecological legacies. I set out to reflect these legacies of place through my practice.

I looked at building as an edifice of colonialism & patriarchy, reflecting it through composition. In stark contrast to this, I looked at the private spiritual lives of those who have come here to worship down the centuries, and reflected this through song. Lastly, I looked at the courtyard garden as the last remnant of nature within the church site; I rewilded a small area of this space and reflected this rewilding process through improvisation.

In the first two days, I spent time exploring the main church space. A deconsecrated church, these days the Triskel is used primarily for live performance and cinema screenings. Therefore the windows are covered, and audiovisual equipment features throughout the space.

On day one I was met by Antony from tech support, who was tasked with showing me how this equipment could be used. I was interested in the natural light and acoustics of the space, and so I requested that all the curtains be drawn and lighting turned off. I found a wealth of inspiration in the stained glass windows, many of which depict biblical scenes. As it turned out, Antony has a background in art history, so he was able to tell me about the windows' biblical origins, which was great as my knowledge of same is scant!

I walked through the space, singing and listening, especially in the two stairwells as the acoustics in both are beautiful. I also experimented with the organ which was wonderful! I've never touched an organ before; I would've loved to have spent more time with it, but as I already had a clear idea of what I wanted to focus on I left this aside. Still, it was an inspiring experience. I was particularly taken with the very low-frequency sounds, and the breath-like sound of the bellows. As the residency wore on I imagined ways of incorporating these sounds into the music I was working on; this is something I'd like to revisit in the future.

In the four days that followed I split my time between the courtyard garden, sketching a choral piece inspired by one of the stained glass windows, and singing in the main church space.

Looking back through my own catalog of songs, I chose repertoire that embodied themes of human vulnerability & connection, and our relationship with nature. I start my day at home with singing & playing: this is my form of prayer or meditation, so it was natural to bring this ritual into my residency. I left the doors to the main church open to the public, and so people often wandered in while I was singing and playing: some sat and listened, and even came up for a chat; others simply wandered around the building. I enjoyed connecting with the public through music in this very relaxed way.

The church portico makes for a perfect stage, comprising a platform with with steps leading down into the courtyard garden – a small green area with picnic benches, mainly occupied by clientele from the Triskel cafe. In the sunny weather this was a lively spot throughout the day.

I cordoned off a 3-metre-squared area of the 'lawn' here with a low willow boundary to allow the flora within to grow, and designated it an 'ARK'. wearetheark.org is a movement founded by reformed landscape designer' and 2002 Chelsea flower show winner, Mary Reynolds , encouraging people to rewild land to allow native species to grow, so that both flora and fauna can flourish. I identified 24 plant species in this tiny area over the course of the month: Briar, Maidenhair Spleenwort, Wall Rue, Creeping Buttercup, Sycamore, Chickweed, Speedwell, Daisy, Dandalion, Wild Garlic, Hedge Mustard, Sow Thistle, Dockleaf, Petty Spurge, Creeping Cinquefoil, Scarlet Pimpernel, Spreading Pelatory, Bindweed, Broad and Narrow-leafed Plaintain, Hart's-tongue fern, Fringed Willowherb, Self-heal, and Ragwort. The courtyard garden is regularly mowed, and so these plants cannot flower or set seed, thus inhibiting both their own capacity to progenerate, and denying birds and insects critical food supplies and habitats.

To reflect this process musically, I hosted two 'ARK Improvisations' (duets) on the portico with improvisers, Dan Walsh (sax) and Eimear Reidy (cello), where we played to the incidental audience of cafe-goers in the courtyard garden, alongside friends and followers who came to hear the music. It felt good to play experimental improvised music to a mixed audience.

I draw a comparison between wild plant growth and improvised music: in both scenarios living organisms navigate their shared space and resources without an externally imposed order or design - be it that of a landscape gardener in the case of plants, or that of a composer in the case of musicians. Over time, what emerges in both scenarios is the innate capacity of all living organisms to establish organic systems of order that adapt to and accommodate each other, and give rise to complex and dynamic ecosystems – be that botanical or artistic. Similar to how tight control of 'green areas' inhibits the flourishing of plants, habitats and biodiversity, tight control of musicians' exploration of sound can inhibit artistic growth and diversity. Improvisation refuses such control, and provides space in which individuality, diversity, autonomy, and authentic collaboration can flourish.

In the final two days of the residency I invited singers, Rebecca Collins & Eithne Ní Chatháin (Inni-K) to join me in workshopping a sketch for a new choral piece, setting the inscription of a biblical proverb from the Townsend Window in the church, describing the 'model woman'.

“She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her”

I composed a simple 3-part choral setting for this text, and spent a little time on the Triskel piano, exploring its harmonic possibilities. I'd been rehearsing with Eithne & Rebecca over the summer for a separate performance, and so we also brought some of this repertoire into the Triskel, moving around the space and finding ways of presenting these pieces spatially for performance.

The residency culminated in a lunchtime concert combining a work-in-progress presentation of the Townsend piece in the front stairwell of the church, the choral repertoire I'd prepared with Rebecca & Eithne, and solo voice & guitar performances of my own and others' songs whose themes related to those of my residency. Alongside my own songs, I presented my choral setting of Freida Kalho's poem, You Deserve a Lover, whose depiction of womanhood contrasts starkly with that of the Townsend window, and the folk song, The Graenmore Hare which explores our relationship with animals. I'd hoped to include two war songs: Battleship Hill by PJ Harvey, and Army Dreamers by Kate Bush, to reference the WW1 Memorial Window , which depicts the biblical boy-character, David as he prepares to fire his slingshot at Goliath, but I didn't get time unfortunately. Similar to the depiction of woman-as-servant in the Townsend window, I found this depiction of boy-as-soldier disturbing; and wondered at these narratives that press children and women into roles of servitude and sacrifice to benefit those in power.

The closing concert, the 'ARK improvisations' and the rewilded area of the courtyard marked the completion of the 'tasks' I'd set myself at the outset of the residency. However, through spending time in the space other reflections emerged, and deepened the connection between these three stories of place I'd been focusing on.

I began to wonder about the earliest origins of the church, and its geographical location as an ancient site of spiritual worship: located roughly at the centre-point of an island between two rivers, presumably this was once a very beautiful and sensory-rich ecological locus. I imagined the first people who congregated here to convene with nature – to experience the sound of rivers rushing past, or wind in the marshes and trees, or light dancing on the water - to worship. I traced the probable trajectory of how an open space in nature became first a stone to sit upon, then a rough shelter, and eventually, a luxurious temple. I wondered how our innate need to alleviate suffering shaped the refinement of this shelter down the centuries, and how this need was - and is still - exploited.

I began to notice how representations of nature abound throughout the church: in the wood carvings of wall panels and pews, the windows, ironwork, architraves and pillars... I wondered about the function of these features as abstractions of the natural world, and how paradoxically, as we shelter ourselves from the elements, we cut ourselves off from the very thing we set out to honour in the first place: the forces of nature – beautiful and terrifying - that enable us to feel acutely our vulnerability, and our need to understand and respect our place within the natural world. I began to think that this vulnerability is the 'anchor' or grounding force of our spirituality, and how, when we insulate or distance ourselves from it too much, our spirituality is weakened. I wondered about the gradual weakening of our spirituality as the product of both the corrupt forces that appropriated our sacred spaces and beliefs, and our now-excessive insulation from nature.

This line of thinking prompted my writing a new song, looking at the connection between suffering and shelter, and the story of how a temple comes into being. It also informs how I'll develop my choral piece, expanding the darker tones of its harmonic terrain to express the insidious nature of power and domination intrinsic to colonialism in both its historic and contemporary manifestations.

laurahyland.com
triskelartscentre.ie