Installed at Yellow Yard, Palace Street, Derry/Londonderry – 16 March to 20 April 2024
Participation/message collection events 23 and 30 March 12 to 4pm.
An interactive artwork created by Northern Ireland/New Zealand artist Colin James Woods is currently on display at the Yellow Yard in Derry – and the artist is looking forward to including more Derry voices in the work. – I Just Called is a curated series of voice recordings of people pretending to leave a voice message to a loved one. Each anonymous caller’s words are unscripted and without context, but the result is immensely affecting for the listener. The original recordings were collected in Northern Ireland and Aotearoa/New Zealand.
The work is about love, our shared humanity and the importance of heartfelt communication.
Ben Allen of the Yellow Yard is an old friend of Woods from their days in Belfast band The Allotropes in the late 1970s. ‘I Just Called’ underwent a major redesign in response to Covid: in the original format, visitors listened to messages using eight dangling telephone handsets. “It’s no longer a safe option to have visitors to an exhibition pick up a handset and listen to the messages,” Colin says, “because the handsets are potential vectors for transmission of pathogenic organisms, particularly as they involve hand contact and are then brought into
close proximity to the face.
“At the same time, the pandemic has made us very aware of the importance of communication and connectedness, so I feel the work is more relevant than ever.” In 2020, Woods moved the work online (see http://ijustcalled.online). The current version combines the online work with a physical presence (telephone seat and framed poster).
People can scan the QR code on the poster, sit on the telephone seat, and listen to the messages on their own phones.
“This piece plays with the dynamic between intimacy and voyeurism. We hear people saying heartfelt and private things to the ones they love. By agreeing to be recorded for the work, they have given us permission to listen, but still, there is a sense that we might be intruding – and that’s both delicious and slightly uncomfortable!”
See more information at the following link
