Prologue (Seven Bells)

TECHNICAL SHEET

Wicker and rattan woven and speakers and players. Variable durations

Location :

Modern Art Museum of Medellín, Colombia.

Curated by

Emiliano Valdés

DETALLES DEL PROYECTO

Tania Candiani: Offering is the Mexican artist’s first large-scale show in Colombia. The exhibition features a series of works that incorporate sound, artisanal processes, and rivers, and which speak of different latitudes, but above all, they speak of Medellín. The exhibition features the artist’s landmark audiovisual works and new installations that explore the relationship between Earth and its inhabitants, both human and non-human, while prompting viewers to question the meaning of their brief passage through this planet. Loosely structured around Preludio cuántico (Quantum Prelude), a two-channel octophonic video that connects mystical, scientific, and aesthetic visions of the universe, Offering is a reflection on the primordial, both audible and palpable.

In the beginning there was sound. From the big bang to the mantra om, sound is at the origin of the worldview of different cultures and traditions. Before the existence of stars and planets, of black holes and white dwarfs, of atoms and even rays of light, the Universe reverberated in a surprising vibration: sound. Today, sound is gaining importance not only in artistic practices as a medium stripped of the symbolic charges of the visual, but also in science and spirituality. It helps us understand the early stages of the cosmos and sheds light on processes that are invisible to the human eye. It also helps to harmonize the body and mind with high vibrations. Sonority helps us understand the invisible and, thus, the unknown.

Sound is also at the core of Tania Candiani’s practice (Mexico City, 1974) whom, over the last fifteen years, has explored it as a material, medium, and tool for measuring and understanding the physical world. Her work, which is organically multidisciplinary, focuses on the translation of languages and techniques. She uses sound fields to understand the conception of the world in different cultures, establish communication with other species, and question the consequences of industrialization and supposed progress that we are experiencing today. The artist has gone so far as to consider sound as a tool to measure the passage of time, craftsmanship, traditions, as well as their material expressions.

Prologue (Seven Bells)

From the Big Bang’s primordial vibrations to spiritual practices like the mantra Om, sound signifies origin and existence. Before stars, planets, or light, the Universe resonated with sound, bridging the unseen and the unknown. Today, sound continues to play a crucial role, not only in spirituality and art, where it transcends the visual’s symbolic weight, but
also in science, where it aids in understanding cosmic origins, revealing processes hidden to the human eye, and harmonizing body and mind.
For Tania Candiani, sound has been a central element of her artistic practice over the last fifteen years. She explores sound as material, medium, and tool for examining the world, creating dialogues between languages, traditions, and techniques. Her work investigates cultural soundscapes, channels interspecies communication, and critiques industrialization’s impact on traditions and ecosystems. Candiani conceptualizes sound as a measure of time, capturing the rhythms of artisanal labor, traditions, and their tangible legacies.
In her recent work in Medellín, Candiani recorded soundscapes at key natural sites like rivers and hills, listening to how nature manifests in urban and peripheral environments. These recordings serve as the foundation for Prólogo (Seven Bells), an installation of seven wicker-
woven trumpets positioned to invite viewers to inhabit and listen to them.

The trumpets metaphorically amplify nature’s messages, connecting sound with organic forms such as seeds or fungi, while referencing artisanal craftsmanship through their woven structure.
This work extends Candiani’s ongoing dialogue with nature and human coexistence, urging us to recalibrate our sensory systems to resonate with the landscape and its inhabitants. Positioned at the exhibition’s entry, the installation acts as an auditory and visual prologue, preparing visitors to engage deeply with the broader themes of the show. Byemphasizing attentive listening, it bridges art, environment, and tradition, inviting reflection on the interconnectedness of all life.

Prologue (Seven Bells), 2024.

Cuando el río suena, 2024.

To Become Mountains, 2024.

Reverencia, 2019.

Quantum Prelude, 2022.

For the animals, 2020.

Coatí, Lobo, Jabalí, Gatomontes, Zorro, Coyote. Del proyecto For the Animals, 2020.

Tidal Choreography, 2023.

Prologue (Seven Bells)

Technical Data Sheet

Wicker and Rattan woven and speakers and players.

Credits

Bells : Mimbres el Paraíso; Soundscape: Jorge Barco, Ollin Miranda and Tania Candiani.

DETALLES DEL PROYECTO

Candiani’s visits to the city resulted in a series of soundscapes based on listening to the way nature manifests itself in the urban and extra-urban environments. These field recordings, made in significant points of Medellin’s geography, such as rivers and hills, form the basis of Prologue (Seven Bells), which employs a recurring form in the artist’s work: the trumpet. They metaphorically amplify the messages nature has for us. The installation is composed of seven belles woven in wicker arranged at a height that allows visitors to inhabit them temporarily. The work proposes a relationship between the forms of sound and those of nature, which is further explored in other works in the exhibition, such as the Offerings.

Prologue also references artisanal knowledge, its fabrics and materials. Its forms recall a seed, a fungus or a microscopic being, and aim to engage with the entities that cohabit our universe, the landscape and the city. It is an invitation to fine-tune our listening, to equalize ourselves with the landscape, and to adjust our sensitive systems to the beings, images, sounds and ideas proposed by this group of exhibitions.

To Become Mountain (Tornarse montaña)

Technical Data Sheet

Rammed earth (Tapia pisada)

Credits

Escala Urbana: Architect, Jaime Gaviria. Masters taperios, Gustavo Loaiza y Dario Caña. Jaime Areiza, Óscar Espinosa, Juan Cañas, Julio Torres, Davinson Guisao, Andrés Estrada and Pilar José Yorkis, tapieros.

DETALLES DEL PROYECTO

Conceived in relation to the sound sculpture Cuando el río suena, To Become Mountain suggests an abstraction of the city’s geography in treaded tapia and a material embrace of both the harp and visitors to the city and the exhibition. This large-format sculpture joins other works in The Foundry that reflect on the ecosystems that determine Medellín and the artisanal practices performed here.

Tapia is a traditional construction technique that uses compacted natural materials and has been used since ancient times. It has gained renewed relevance as a sustainable construction method. To Become Mountain employs this technique common in pre-Columbian America, bringing the earth of the city to the Museum’s galleries. This generates a symbolic link with the territory, as well as a concrete one. The hills constructed in tapia symbolize the geography and, by extension, the geological layers on which the city is built. They represent not only the immediacy of the urban present, which is constantly changing, but also the slow development of the planet. The sculpture is a tribute to the relatively young mountains that protect the river and invite us to walk along their slopes to rethink and re-engage with the river and the territory.

Process of the Tapia Pisada.

View of the process of the Tapia Pisada in the Museum.

Escala Urbana Team.

Cuando el río suena

Technical Data Sheet

Musical instrument in teak, cypress and choibá. Metal strings.

Credits

Luthier, Andrés Giraldo García and Carlos Chinchillas. Srings, Juan José Valencia Delgado.

DETALLES DEL PROYECTO

Cuando el río suena is a work created for this exhibition and is part of Candiani’s interest in fluvial ecosystems and, specifically, her research on the trace of rivers. The canalization of rivers erases their course over the territory and profoundly modifies their ecology, a process that is characteristic of the industrialization of certain cities during the twentieth century. The work proposes the recovery of the natural course of the Medellín River, which was lost with its canalization in the nineteen fifties. This alteration of the river’s course and dynamics has also resulted in the river being used as a dump, normalizing its use as sewage for the growing industry in the city. The sound sculpture recuperates the original course of the river as it passes through the city; it is an instrument that can be played, as if caressing the enlarged harp’s chords, the river’s waters were symbolically cleansed.

The work represents a metaphorical approach to a river that, since its modification for the sake of progress, became inaccessible and even dangerous. The sculpture enables interaction on a scale that facilitates a renewed relationship with the river. An acoustic instrument establishes a ritual correspondence with the river’s primordial trace, enabling action on its current state through hearing and touch.