LISTENING TO APPALACHIAN OHIO (FALL, 2021)

Listening to Appalachian Ohio was a solo exhibition of sound and visual works at the Miller Gallery at Otterbein University. It included three projects from my many years of work in Appalachian Ohio—Shawnee, Ohio, Forest Listening Rooms, and Moonshine Parade—and was the first time that they have been presented together. There was also a public screening of Shawnee, Ohio, as well as numerous workshops with classes from across the university. Coincidentally, I grew up in Westerville, Ohio (where Otterbein is located), so as part of my residency I explored new and old soundscapes of the town with students throughout the fall.

Taken together, these works provide a stark and radically different alternative to J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, and instead of perpetuating myths about exceptionalism and individualism, they show ways in which Appalachian Ohio communities work together and support each other. It seems especially important to share these works with students and faculty in a learning environment, as a way to fight against regional stereotypes. The exhibition was from August 23 through November 17, 2021. You can find more information about it here.

Below, you can find a digital representation of the exhibition, with videos and sound recordings from each project.

GALLERY IMAGES

FOREST LISTENING ROOMS (2018-Present)

FOREST LISTENING ROOMS is a socially engaged sound art project. It invites local communities in Appalachian Ohio to gather in outdoor spaces and critically listen to sounds of energy extraction, with the goals of ending fracking on Wayne National Forest’s contested public lands, and building a sustainable and equitable economy. This project contends that listening to the forest’s past and present can transform its future.

Forest Listening Rooms consists of over a dozen situations and iterations over eighteen months. There is no single “performance” of the piece; instead, it is comprised of many experiences of listening followed by shared conversation, and is focused on land use, environmental issues, and the rural/urban divide. No two listening sessions are the same, as evinced by these recordings, which include children, hunters, all terrain-vehicle riders, environmental activists, concerned residents, oil drillers, community organizers, and local historians. Finally, the main audiences of Forest Listening Rooms are the local residents that live in Appalachian Ohio, and it is their experiences of listening that are the central components of the project.

The project’s process is as follows: community members begin with a sound walk (a quiet, mindful hike that pays attention to listening) in the forest to outdoor spaces (or, “rooms”), to listen in situ. Locations range from the cave where the United Mine Workers secretly formed, to a 130-year old mine fire, to a contemporary fracking drill site. In these spaces, participants experience soundscapes around them mixed with local archival recordings of past residents and miners (projected from audio speakers). Participants hear flowing water, bird calls, plantlife, industrial rhythms, and archival sounds of oral histories, disasters, and protest. Participants then listen to each other as they share their own experiences, hopes, and fears. These stories are recorded and remixed into future sessions, creating a continually expanding feedback loop. The result is a sonic map of the complex past and present of the forest, revealing thoughts, tensions, and emotions of its people.

Forest Listening Rooms was made possible through a Contemplative Practices Fellowship from A Blade of Grass. You can learn more about this project here.

SHAWNEE, OHIO (2016-21)

SHAWNEE, OHIO is a series of audiovisual portraits of people from a small Appalachian mining town. It uses archival recordings, video, and images alongside newly composed music to critically explore issues of extraction, economy, and ecology in the region.

Shawnee’s history includes coal, gas, oil, and clay extraction, and the formation of early labor unions. The town’s downturn and partial restoration act as an ethos of the struggles and hopes of the larger region, now immersed in a controversial fracking boom. Shawnee, Ohio considers these histories, evokes place through sound, and listens to the present alongside traces of the past.

In their own voices, eleven local residents recount their lives, work, friendships, and deeds. They talk and sing of mining, disasters, underground fires, murders, social life, protest, and hope. They include women and men; they are black and white; and they span across generations and centuries.

Shawnee, Ohio was co-commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, Duke Performances at Duke University, and the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati). Shawnee, Ohio is a project of Creative Capital, and also received support from the Ohio Arts Council. You can find more information about the project here.

MOONSHINE PARADE (2014)

MOONSHINE PARADE: I walk among crowds of people at the Moonshine Festival in New Straitsville, Ohio. It is Memorial Day weekend, the beginning of summer. The festival celebrates the town’s notoriety, where illegal moonshine was (and perhaps still is) made and sold. Moonshining came to prominence here in part as a response to underground fires that ended coal mining in the late 1800s.

I walk up and down Main Street, listening. There is a Johnny Cash recording in the background. I eavesdrop as people sell and buy tickets and t-shirts and funnel cakes and onion petals. I hear electricity buzzing, chains clinking, clapping, laughter, motors, coughing, yelling, a baby crying, a car radio, wood hitting concrete, hissing air, growls, sighs, birds, revving, banging, pounding, sneezing, and a dog sniffing.

A parade begins, mostly of local fire trucks, a few muscle cars, and a host of festival queens from around the state. The announcer’s sing-song baritone voice provides a running commentary as he introduces each queen: “And here’s our very own Moonshine Queen... That is one serious dress you’ve got on right now...” The festival highlights one of the ways the region remembers and defines itself, deriving names from different industries, histories, and attractions, such as the “Railroad Festival,” “Old Settlers Reunion,” “Ohio Hills Folk Festival,” “Coal Festival,” and “Indian Mound Festival.”

I continue to listen and walk toward a parking lot where there are a number of temporary carnival rides set up. As I move away from the parade its sounds do not disappear altogether, but rather merge and overlap into the noise of machinery, chains moving, and mostly empty cages whirling overhead. There are more fragments of conversation: “Hey hey hey, you ready to play? I’ll let you win today!” A child yells above the din of machinery, “I wanna go on the rocket! I wanna go on the rocket!” as another says, “Hey, can you buy me a wristband?”

These are the sounds of the Moonshine Festival, and the recordings here evoke and celebrate the movement, variety, and interaction of the people attending the event.

More information about this project can be found here.