Suspended is a sound work by sound artist Victoria Fenner inspired by 13 metal sculptures, created by Roy Hickling and Tim Bilton, and suspended within a corridor of red pine trees. The work’s 13 movements reflect on the sound of metal and the sounds of the environment at Sand Forest Farm where the sculptures live.

Most sculptures are meant to be seen, not heard. But when I walked beneath the twisted, hammered metal sculptures suspended from a row of red pine trees at Sand Forest Farm, there was something that tweaked my sonic imagination.

The first sculpture, a solid metal globe where all ends connected, was similar to many other globes which Roy Hickling has created in previous years. But the other sculptures moved away from the perfect symmetry of the first sculpture, seeming as though they were dissolving, reconstructing, taking on new forms. It was this dramatic change from one sculpture to another which captured my imagination perhaps because I too have felt suspended in the past few years under changing life circumstances and the after effects of the COVID lockdown.

I am interested in the concept of synesthesia – the crossing over of one sense to another. And I heard those changes – suspension, disintegration, and reintegration as I stood under each sculpture. My resulting sound art, Suspended, reflects a world where metal responds to the earth, air, water and the fire that forged the pieces.

The 13 separate movements within the Suspended sound work reflect on the sound of metal, combined with the sounds which metal creates when it is forged, hammered and bent. Captured environmental sounds, from within the 67 acres at Sand Forest Farm, are also an important part of the work. Each movement is set in a different season to reflect the totality of the year across various weather conditions and environments. The work also includes human-made sounds, since the sculptures live not far from a busy secondary road and a small airport, as well as other sounds intentionally and intuitively added.

The majority of the sounds were collected using a technique which is known as soundwalking, a meditative practice which encourages the listeners to be silent and to let the environment speak.

In terms of process of creating this work I soundwalked the site and also left a recorder with Sue and Roy Hickling to record sounds on their daily walks. Roy Hickling, Tim Bilton, and I also ‘played’ various sculptures and objects around the farm on an active improvisatory soundwalk where we added our own sounds to the environment. The first movement of the collection begins with an act of active soundmaking – the sounds of Roy and Tim working on the metal in their shop, making reference to the human intentionality of the work.

In tribute to the artist Roy Hickling, I added another sound to this work – in every movement is the sounds of a guitar being tuned and restrung. To my ears, listening to a guitar being strung, with metal strings, is like its own musical composition. Roy Hickling is talented singer/songwriter who has published three albums to-date, so incorporating the sound of the metal strings of the guitar in each moment seemed like the right thing to do. Thank you, Dave Joyce, friend and fellow BAD/Ass musician, for allowing me to record the guitar restringing and tuning sounds as he restrung his own guitar.

And finally, there are sounds of my ‘playing’ metal to enable it to speak in its various voices and tonalities. For about six months, during the sound gathering phase of the project, I recorded every piece of metal that I found. I ‘played’ metal boat trailers, slabs of metal, old pots and pans, and even the metal slats on a furnace grating. One of my favourite sounds was recorded using a contact microphone which attached to the metal and recorded directly through a cable into my sound recorder, allowing me to capture the internal resonance of the object I was playing.

Once all the sounds were gathered, I sliced and diced the sounds and rearranged them in my computer like an audio mosaic. Except for some electronic processing of some of the metal sounds, all of the sounds used in Suspended sound the way they did in the original recordings.

To listen to the work, a recording with headphones will be available on-site at Sand Forest Farm at its premier, where the listener can walk beneath the 13 sculptures that inspired this sound art.

Each of the 13-movements is separated by footsteps on the forest floor, indicating when one sculpture is finished and another one begins. A series of metal clangs (similar to bells) at the beginning of each movement indicates which sculpture the movement belongs -- one bell is the first sculpture, two bells is the second, all the way to the end where the 13 bells indicate that the end of the journey is near and the listener is about to emerge out of the trees.

There will also be a version, with images available to watch on a television screen for viewing at the event, as well as an artist talk with Roy and myself. The work will be available online after September 14, 2025.