Tania Candiani: Language as Sound

Curated by Aleksandra Księżopolska

The exhibition Language as Sound brings together areas of interest fundamental for the Mexican artist, such as language, texture of sound and the resonance with architecture. The show is part of Tania Candiani’s ongoing investigation into interrelations between systems—linguistic, visual, phonic—and the space. Similarly to her previous working methods she has used an interdisciplinary approach and has developed her recent pieces during numerous visits to Gdansk since 2014.

Language as Sound is Tania Candiani’s first solo exhibition in Poland. It translates music and rhythm of the Polish language. By challenging traditional ways of perceiving reality she celebrates its resonant, buzzling and sibilating melody. Cut and broken consonants seem to reveal a language score. With the help of female performers and their vocal cords she creates a monolithic structure, a sound sculpture. Frozen and unmoving, focused, hypnotised, they bring into existence a spectacle of sounds absent from the Spanish language. The place of this urban-architectural intervention was not accidental. For Tania Candiani, the industrial space of the 19th century Royal Rifle Factory, located in the Gdansk district of Dolne Miasto (Lower City), constitutes an integral element of the work, becoming an instrument itself. Its concrete walls, columns, floors and ceilings resonate. The space acoustics allows one to “hear” architecture, experience it sensorily. The choir’s collective gestures create a structure, hypnotise the viewer for the duration of the piece.

Second work Sirens presented in the frames of the exhibition can be read as more surrealistic. Tania Candiani has created an illusion by mismatching the images that are on view with the sounds produced by 441Hz choir. One more time with the help of her intimate vocabulary, the artist has created a deeply original work performed under carefully composed parameters.

About the artist
Tania Candiani’s work has developed in various media and practices that maintain an interest in the complex intersection between languages systems—phonic, graphic, linguistic, symbolic, technological. Through the exploration of elements such as sound, words and diagrams recreates unique translations that enhance the possibilities of language. She has collaborated with interdisciplinary working groups in various fields of knowledge, consolidating intersections between art, design, literature, architecture and science. In her works we can appreciate the materialisation of the artist reflections about the technical and scientific subjects as well as our relationship with technology and the history behind them for the production of knowledge.​

She is fellow by the National System of Art Creators, Mexico since 2012, and has received Smithsonian Artist Fellowship in 2017; Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 2011 and an Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica in 2013, among others.

She represented Mexico, in collaboration with Luis Felipe Ortega, at the 56th Venice Biennale. Tania Candiani’s works have been exhibited across the globe in more than 60 international venues and they are in a number of public as well as private collections.

Exhibition Language as Sound has been specifically produced for CCA LAZNIA and is an outcome of Tania Candiani’s residencies in Poland in 2014. Displayed pieces were created in cooperation with the ensemble Laboratorium Pieśni (Song Laboratory) and 441Hz choir.

Residency program
Residency program in Laznia CCA is aimed at Polish as well as foreign artists. One of its main objectives is to open space for creative dialogue. Residency is not constrained by the predetermined conditions. The period and the formula are tailored to artist’s needs and developed as a result of a joint dialogue. Process rather than the final artistic production is predominant.

This year CCA Laznia celebrates its 20th anniversary year. Full programme: laznia.pl