Last night (Thursday 21st October) saw the inside of St Helier’s Town Church transformed beyond all recognition, by ArtHouse Jersey’s The Sound of Colour.
Sponsored by Bedell Cristin and UBS, the building was filled by 3D projection mapping created by internationally renowned director and designer Akhila Krishnan. The piece took place in tandem with a specially commissioned score by Jersey-born Berlin-based Viv Le Vav.
The sound and light collaboration was accompanied by live vocals from the stunning Welsh vocalist Casi Wyn. The run of five completely sold-out shows are the headline events for the arts charity’s groundbreaking Skipton Big Ideas, thought to be is Island’s largest ever art exhibition of its kind.
Krishnan has described the project as a dream commission, largely because she has been able to author the work herself, both narratively and visually. Though the project was to have originally happened in October 2020, the delay caused by the pandemic has allowed the work to develop and grow in dynamic and unexpected ways.
The Sound of Colour, at its heart, is about looking out and within, echoing the questions we have asked ourselves over this pandemic about our identity as humans and our connection to the natural world. Producer Natasha Dettman, musician Viv le Vav and Akhila Krishnan have been meeting regularly for the past eight months, gathering together every two weeks to share the edit as it develops so that the music can respond to it, and vice versa. “It’s been very organic,” said Krishnan, “like watching this seed we have all planted develop and grow together.”
This is Krishnan’s first interior projection mapping piece and that, she says, brings its own set of challenges. She and her team have had to work to respect the architecture and take the viewer’s perspective of looking up at the roof into account, as the work was written and conceptualised. This point of view is harnessed in the sequences of the show; looking up at the stars and skies above jersey, being deep under the ocean surrounding the island, lying in the countryside and watching the seasons pass by.
The result is that this landmark at the centre of St Helier has been transformed in a way that presents a huge cultural moment in Jersey. Architectural projection mapping is meant to be seen live for the scale and impact it creates in transforming the everyday into something new. Those who were lucky enough to have tickets would have experienced goosebumps, as they were taken on a ride up into the skies, below the ocean, to the surface of the sea, to the hills around the Island of Jersey and deep into the heart of the natural world.
