This old phone box is just by our studio: Studio Space Art in Broughty Ferry. There is a sign in it saying that it is probably going to be taken away as no-one uses it. I’ve walked past it for years but the other day something made me go inside. I lifted the receiver, the dialling tone kicked in and it came up on the screen that it was 60p to make a local call. ‘60p WOW, I am old’, I thought. It made me smile that it still works. I didn’t expect that it would. Being in the box, the smell of it (surprisingly no wee or sick :) ), the confinement, reminded me of all kinds of past memories, instantly transported back to being a kid/teenager in Dundee when I’d walk along to the end of my road to the phone box to call a mate at a set time, the stress if someone was already using it - the feelings of excitement waiting to receive a private call ( an old boyfriend) out of parent earshot or news from a pal was always special! Those calls were so precious and I always felt gutted when they ended, sometimes you’d be cut off mid sentence, running out of money with everything left hanging in the air and the ‘sound of your voice’ in my ear.
Memory and Grief are 2 particular areas of research for my artistic practice and a few years ago I came across this really gorgeous and moving story about ‘the wind telephone’ in Japan. It came about by a dude, Itaru Sasaki, who was really struggling after the loss of his cousin so he bought an old phone box and put it in his garden. It wasn’t connected to anywhere, but he got great comfort talking about his feelings into the phone, it helped him still feel connected to his cousin and for him to air his grief and for it to be carried off out on the wind and sea. Many people who heard about him judged him and thought he was bonkers to do this.
Then in 2011 tragedy struck throughout Japan with a devastating tsunami of giant black waves of more than 30 feet tall and an earthquake that swiftly followed. Over 20,000 people were killed and in the town of Otsuchi that had stood for almost 100 years, it was pretty much immediately totally flattened claiming 1,284 lives with 421 still missing.
After the disaster word got out about Itaru’s special telephone and over time, people started randomly coming from all over Japan, thousands and thousands started to turn up to use his telephone and to air their sudden grief, and Itaru let them. The audio transcripts are so beautiful and moving! You can listen to them below in the link.
Anyway, I’m going to create an artistic project over the coming weeks of isolation with the call box, ‘the ferry phone’ (sound of your voice) where people can call me to talk and share stories about isolation during this current giant global Tsunami wave of corona virus and I will document the countries and callers i hear from. And if people don’t want me to , i won’t share what what we talk about: that will be just between you and I, you have my word!
All details on how to take part are here in this image, you can contact me on Twitter and Instagram via direct message at our studio @studiospaceart if you would like to talk and take part and you will be given further detials about how to connect and call. It would be cool to see how far a reach we can get in these choppy and unchartered waters. And if people can’t afford to call me, we’ll work out me calling them.
My Art is never about making money and doubly not at this time of global emergency. I will work out times across timezones and of course the phone box (no one uses it) and phone will be deeply sanitised every time. This may be a tiny (in terms of space) site specific project but by no means is it small in ambition.
I will have to be careful about going out for ‘non essential’ reasons when we are on lockdown but if I don’t try to help in the healing during these frankly weird times or be allowed to be creative when my industry has gone dark then I just may go mad. It might be an emergency call…
I read this quote yesterday and I felt empowered;
“in times of dread, artists must never remain silent. This is precisely the time when Artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That’s how civilizations heal” - Toni Morrison - via @imaginexjustice
Let’s try to be better connected once all of this is over and we have assessed the damage to humanity. Keep in mind in these times that our planet is benefiting no end from all of this stopping still by humans.
Call me (in isolation), I love the sound of a voice on the other end of the phone, something i miss greatly about our ever ‘advancing’ times…
Love
Sharron
❤️
“the ferry phone” #thesoundofyourvoice #Dundee #BroughtyFerry #Scotland
This project is inspired by what is currently happening across the globe with the Corona Virus and Itaru Sasaki and his ‘wind telephone’ and: Really long distance
; https://www.thisamericanlife.org/597/one-last-thing-before-i-go
02//04//2020:
UK Lockdown:
Stories of Isolation
As humans around the globe slow down at this time, things feel to be changing around us at the speed of light. Information overload, people busying themselves and changing their businesses to online, zooming happening all over the joint and a constant stream of doom and gloom headlines!
We just want to go slowly in this time, in our work and with our family as we think we might need to reserve our energies.
Since we had the idea above to take calls from people who wanted to share their stories with us, to be a warm voice listening on the end of a phone in these tough times, isolation rules have tightened. In an attempt to act responsibly and to do our bit during this time of crisis and real threat to humanity, we are respecting and adhering to those regulations. So we can no longer use this phone box at this time.
And so our project is changing and moving in its own direction. We’re keeping listening to people at the core of the project, listening, responding and adapting to the needs of those who wish to take part and who are getting in touch, this feels really positive. And so we figure, the sound of your or my voice can be any way we wish.
We want to be as accessible as we can to everyone at this time so we are now open to hearing from people in any way that feels right for them to communicate with us. No rush, just nice and slow as we think this situation might go on for a wee while.
We are inviting people still to DM us @studiospaceart on Instagram and Twitter if you have social media but also, please feel free to email us on contact@sharrondevine.com if you don’t have social media and we can take it from there as to how we go forwards communicating.
Some things we have already received; a letter that requires a response, an audio Skype call, a poem from a son in Spain to his mother who died this week in isolation in the UK, thoughts of grief on this global pandemic...
We are just listening and slowly gathering stories at the moment and think in time we will create a page to hold the things we receive in these times, but only the things that people are okay with us sharing. We feel very special to be a part of people sharing these moments with us at this time. Thank you! X