Laetitia Sonami: Shower of Sound (The Secret Ingredient - 04/06/14)

The Secret Ingredient

This week we discuss the work of California-based artist Laetitia Sonami, including a current project of hers in Rijeka. We hear from her about her interest in creating works of sound that evoke immersive environments of memory, curiosity, and ambiguity. Her recent piece, Soundgates, showers visitors to the Rijeka Pier in sounds collected by both Sonami and Rijeka’s youth. We discuss ambiguity in art, where a work can find a balance between precise intention and obscurity. We discuss her work as a soft engagement, and discuss how a work may lose its ability to be interpreted if it is too soft or aggressive. How does her work open spaces for listening and awareness? "I think for me the secret ingredient in art makes me think of the other person somehow, how it inscribes itself in a group of people or a community. I think it goes back to that space we are creating, how much space we allow for that other and how much room we leave for the other is the most important." - Laetitia Sonami