Opening March 20th in the Alternator Main Gallery is I Hear a Silent Dissonance by Woojae Kim!
I Hear a Silent Dissonance is an exhibition of handmade percussion instruments made in response to the 2023 fire season. The installation is accompanied by a sound composition and a text that reflects the experimentation and listening in its making.
Exhibiting in Kelowna holds particular significance as the work was shaped by a research trip Kim took to West Kelowna after the 2023 McDougall Creek fire. In response to the landscape, Kim began crafting drums inspired by traditional Korean music. Percussion instruments are used in rituals that seek reconciliation between humans and the more-than-human. These ceremonies—known as 풀이 (Pul-i), or “untangling”—are led by four instruments: the buk (large drum), janggu (hourglass drum), jing (large gong), and gwenggari (small gong). Through collective resonance, these rituals aim to foster empathy and repair.
In music, dissonance is often understood as tension moving toward resolution. This notion of musical dissonance contrasts with Kim’s experience of cognitive dissonance. He recognises his own complicity within the ecological conditions he responds to while failing to make changes. By analogizing cognitive dissonance to sonic friction, the work invites audiences to listen to the timbre of friction.
The sound composition is made from recordings of the instruments in the exhibition. It comes from experimentation on producing sound through friction-based techniques: violin bows drawn across cymbals, wooden sticks rubbed against drum skins, and surfaces resisting one another. The installation is arranged to echo the instrument placement during the recording sessions.
Together, the instruments, sound, and text form an environment that resists closure. I Hear a Silent Dissonance proposes dissonance as a condition to inhabit—an attentive space where resonance, responsibility, and relation remain in conflict.
Join us on March 20th from 6 - 8pm for a triple opening reception, as we celebrate alongside Samantha Wigglesworth in our Project Gallery and Kel Taylor in our Members’ Gallery.
Woojae Kim is a Korean artist and writer living on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, Canada). His works explore rituals of interdependency and listening to inaudible frequencies of relationships with non-humans and the land.
His work has been exhibited in Vancouver (Artspeak, Dreams Comma Delta, Afternoon Projects), Toronto (The Plumb) and New York (Psychic Readings*). His texts were published in the Canadian Art and the Capilano Review. Kim received an MFA from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.
See more of his work on Instagram!