Beacon Tower: Alliyah Enyo: Selkie Reflections

Siren and Selkie myths and echoic memory are the basis for this audio work which explores themes of time, grief and memory. At its heart is the exploration of the metaphoric parallells between the communication of Humpback Whales and one’s own auditory memories. Humpback Whales use song to converse. Underwater, sound takes longer to travel but travels over greater distances. For the whales the song and conversationis a non linear experience, a soundscape, where different songs arrive together but each from different points in time. This is much like the pathos experienced  when listening to an audio recording of a person from years ago, as time is stretched and distended by a voice communicating with us from the past.

Alliyah’s interdisciplinary practice gravitates towards embodied and meditative processes. Believing frequencies in sound are healing, she harnesses ritualisation to create ‘sonorous myth’ installations and performances. Her process involves designing, recording, and archiving sound. Using field recordings like archaeological objects, memories are preserved and discovered throughout her soundscapes, echoing and resonating reflecting her interest in ‘echoic memory’. The work exists as a mythologisation of her emotional landscape conflated with ancient Greek mythologies and Scottish folklore. Woven soundscapes are multi-layered as if growing, crafted through her use of analogue hardware.

Alliyah is is one of the recipients of ESW’s Youth Bursary Award. For more information on her work and the other artists involved in the programme click here.

The Youth Bursary Programme has been generously supported by Creative Scotland.