2004 - 2007
Silkthreads
Between 2004 and 2005, Denise Bryan and Adrian Wilkins (sound artist) travelled along the Silk Road. During the journey they created a website.
Visitors to the site could request sights or sounds that they would like to see, collected from the places that the artists were travelling through. In this way the artists journey was influenced by the requests that they received. As the website grew more categories were added to this Cabinet of Curiosities. The work was intended to be a 21st Century version of the Wunderkammer, one that was accessible to everyone via the internet and one that did not entail the plunder of cultural objects from the places that the artists visited.
The Website
2004 - 2005
Please bear with us; the Silkthreads website will be relaunched soon.
For now, please enjoy these screenshots.
…and the time is now
Durham Oriental Museum - 2007
Babylon Ely - 2007
This exhibition project was the result of research made during the fifteen-month trip along the Silk Road.
The main focus of the exhibition was a bank of old analogue televisions showing five separate video sequences. The videos contained moving image and stills collected during the Silk Road journey, these images and films were also related to objects in the Oriental Museum, Durham, where the installation was first shown.
There was also a soundscape, made up of field recordings from the fifteen-month trip. This was heard on speakers and emanating from pre-recordable megaphones. The piece was inspired by the Sunday Market in Hotan, Western China. A number of photographs taken during the trip formed a link with the museum collection.
The exhibition was then shown at Babylon, Ely, in this version the work was contextualised by a display of Silk from the Silk Museum in Macclesfield and a projected image of displays at The Oriental Museum. At the opening of the exhibition there was a performance work, using sounds from Ely and from the Silk Road played from the pre-recordable megaphones.
Video of the screen content from the installations.
Documentation of performance work, Ely
Museum Objects
Colour photographs
Seen in both exhibitions.
Turkish Bath
Victoria Baths, Manchester - 2006
This installation was created for the Turkish Bath in The Victoria Baths, Manchester. The installation was based on a survey in which people were asked which sound they remembered most from their travels and which sound they would most like to hear.
In the first room of the bath, which would have been the coolest room of the Turkish Bath, visitors could hear people talking about the sounds they remembered from their world travels. In the second room of the Bath, visitors could hear sounds that had been recorded in the field, similar to those described in the first room. In the final room of the installation, which would have been the hottest room in the Turkish Bath, there was a video projection showing a collage of images of a disused Turkish Bath in Eastern Turkey, of Islamic tiles and text describing the sounds people would most like to hear.
Each room also contained custom made mattresses for listeners to recline on, and which had images of Islamic tiles printed on their pillows.
Installation Video
Video of the Turkish Bath installation on Vimeo.
Silkthreads: A Journey to China
Macclesfield Silk Museum - 2006
After returning from the journey along the Silk Road, Denise Bryan and Adrian Wilkins (sound artist) collaborated with The Silk Museum in Macclesfield to create an exhibition that told the story of their journey through silk, images and sounds. The exhibition included a version of The Turkish Bath Installation.
Black and white photographs of the journey
Rites of Way
Rites of Way was a performance piece created to be part of the linked exhibitions, Quest: the Artist as Pilgrim at OVADA, Oxford and Pilgrimage: a Sacred Journey at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. - 2006
This performance pilgrimage started in OVADA and progressed through the city to The Ashmolean, the performance leader and the participants took part in actions that related to works in the OVADA exhibition, objects in the Ashmolean exhibition and made reference to aspects of Oxford itself. This was done by making reference to rituals witnessed by the artist during her fifteen month long journey along the Silk Road.
