Photographer and sound artist Joanne Matthews’ latest work merges the photography series, A Drowning Out, with audio for a multisensory experience. Murky Horizons is an ongoing and expansive project which delves into the phenomenon of eerie radical others. Heavily inspired by Wardie Bay Beach in North Edinburgh, predicted to be underwater by 2050, Matthews presents a land that has a time limit – a drowning beach. Through a process of enquiry and fieldwork, Matthews began to ask questions about the future, past and present.
“It’s to embrace something stirring, rising, unsettling in the landscape, a hauntology of dark pasts and uncertain futures in the face of climate collapse.”
Driven by questions around connection, Matthews muses on how to cultivate and demonstrate wildness – a key notion in her work. Other important considerations include: how to lean into flux and capture ephemera? How to connect to the darkness of climate collapse? How to queer oppressive structures through the body?
Upon reflection on her process of working, Matthews reveals: “recently I’ve realised that whenever I begin a new line of enquiry or project I think of raving. It’s a wonderful experience to be in a room connecting with a group of strangers by sweating, moving together and feeling in the present moment. These thoughts and experiences energise my work and I often listen to house, garage and techno music to bring my mind and body back to a place of transcendence and fuel whatever I am making in that moment.” She finds music and audio to be a therapeutic, enlightening and energising experience that helps to form an initial idea in her mind. Music, or ‘rave’ becomes more than the mere act of dancing. It comes to represent that for Matthews, the dancing body is a political act.
With an intricate way of working, her multi-pronged process is a self-described ‘mess’ of reading, sketching, listening, writing, and dialogue – either alone or with others. The next step is to respond to a site or place that intrigues her. Ideas and theories from this time, start to form usually at the back of Matthews’ mind. First-hand research or fieldwork is vital, for example sonic meditations and walks to listen and tune-in. As she walks, immersing herself in the area, voice notes are created, writing takes shape, field recordings begin. Deeply personal and phenomenological thoughts weave their way in, and the work starts to develop.
Upon reflection on her process of working, Matthews reveals: “recently I’ve realised that whenever I begin a new line of enquiry or project I think of raving. It’s a wonderful experience to be in a room connecting with a group of strangers by sweating, moving together and feeling in the present moment. These thoughts and experiences energise my work and I often listen to house, garage and techno music to bring my mind and body back to a place of transcendence and fuel whatever I am making in that moment.” She finds music and audio to be a therapeutic, enlightening and energising experience that helps to form an initial idea in her mind. Music, or ‘rave’ becomes more than the mere act of dancing. It comes to represent that for Matthews, the dancing body is a political act.
With an intricate way of working, her multi-pronged process is a self-described ‘mess’ of reading, sketching, listening, writing, and dialogue – either alone or with others. The next step is to respond to a site or place that intrigues her. Ideas and theories from this time, start to form usually at the back of Matthews’ mind. First-hand research or fieldwork is vital, for example sonic meditations and walks to listen and tune-in. As she walks, immersing herself in the area, voice notes are created, writing takes shape, field recordings begin. Deeply personal and phenomenological thoughts weave their way in, and the work starts to develop.
Matthews appears to be somewhat of a sponge as her wide-reaching interests undeniably shape her approach to working and serve as sources of inspiration. Her latest fixation is a deep dive into female and queer sound artists and how these practices embrace collectivity, flux and intersectionality. Artists including Poemproducer/AGF, Jacki Apple, Hildegard Westerkamp and Pauline Oliveros.
However, the environmental humanities and, within that, academic ecocriticism have also provided rich source material for Matthews’ ideas to stem from. These include Anna Tsing, Kathleen Stewart, Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzi Gablik, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Donna Haraway. Queering is a big part of Joanne’s work – titles include the work of Jack Halberstam, The Institute of Queer Ecology, The Serpentine’s podcast series with Victoria Sin and the work of Ama Josephine Budge. Other literary titles such as Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Modern Nature by Derek Jarman, The Parable of the Talents and Sower by Octavia Butler show Joanne reads a wide variety of material that informs her work.
“I see listening as a political act. I want to show the world that slowing down and leaning into change is important. I am fueled by discovery through subjective-social science and gaining knowledge through the senses. ”
