Still Point // Perpetual Guest

Concert series and recording project

Background

Still Point” was a series of three concerts, performance installations and accompanying recording sessions at the historic Kreenholm Manufactory in Narva, Estonia, supported by the Narva Art Residency (NART). Each of the three performances (two collaborative, one solo) took place in different spaces in the factory, interacting with the unique acoustics of its massive, reverberant rooms, utilizing sounding objects found during field research, and taking inspiration from the layers of history, labor, conflict, and lives past and present that can be felt as “spirits” lingering in now-quiet factory spaces. They engage as well with the particular kind of silence felt in this small city directly at Europe’s border with Russia, in the midst of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

That all these multitudinous influences comprise the “Still Point” found together now.

A large and unexpected part of this project involved the restoration of an antique, ca. 100-year old harmonium found on a local marketplace in nearby Rakvere. Working in the abandoned factory spaces due to the DIY nature of this project, I disassembled and cleaned it of some decades-old mouse refuse(!) to get it back into fully-playing condition. This hands-on process of learning, understanding, and appreciating influenced the playing: improvisations lean into the latent characteristics of the instrument’s construction and history—human and non-human—which have made it sound just as it does. This is the same sensitive process with which I tried to approach the sites: the factory, the river, the border, the city…

In continuation / as dissemination of this ethos, select recordings from this project will be released as an album titled Perpetual Guest (tbd).

Residency period 1 July - 8 August 2023
Performances 27 & 29 July, 1 August 2023
Kreenholm Textile Factory, Narva Art Center, Narva, Estonia

Credits

Wilson Tanner Smith (cello, harmonium, found objects, performance installation, creation/curation)
Katariin Raska (torupill / Estonian folk bagpipes)
Kristjan Kannukene (viola, electric guitar, voice, performance installation)
Heliä Mailiis Viirakivi (flute, voice, performance installation)