A single work of art can get into your system and stay there.
I’ve been living with — haunted by — one by the Navajo composer and sound artist Raven Chacon since encountering it in the 2022 Whitney Biennial.
Titled “Silent Choir (Standing Rock),” it had no visual element.
Even then, the only sound was the rustle of breathing, of bodies shifting and of the high-up buzz of surveillance helicopters.
The same year as the Biennial, Chacon was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music for a different, more traditionally “musical” piece, “Voiceless Mass” (2021).
Persons:
I’ve, Raven Chacon, Chacon, John the Evangelist
Organizations:
Navajo, Access Pipeline, Roman Catholic Cathedral
Locations:
St, Milwaukee