Meet at Sky Landing by Yoko Ono on Jackson Park’s Wooded Island
6401 S Stony Island Ave, Chicago, IL 60637

Advanced Registration Requested
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/re-presencing-soundwalk-by-norman-w-long-tickets-1417717233409

Re-Presencing is a Jackson Park soundwalk from The Garden of the Phoenix on the Wooded Island to 63rd St Beach, inspired by Ida B. Wells’ writings. Jackson Park was the site of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Ida B. Wells published “The Reason Why The Colored American is not in the World’s Columbian Exposition. The Afro-American’s Contribution to Columbian Literature”. This pamphlet protests the absence of African Americans at the fair and also protests the booming prison industrial complex and lynching of black men and women all across America. She also highlights the progress of African Americans since emancipation as equally important and intertwined with the progress of the United States. Norman performed a live mix of field recordings from Jackson Park with vocalist Cher Jey at Experimental Station as part of WHPK’s “Pictures and Sounds” event in 2019. Norman completes this cycle with a soundwalk.

Recently, there has been an effort to restore the dune ecology at 63rd Street Beach, as well as the restoration of Wooded Isle. The Obama Presidential Library is also being constructed on this parkland. Jackson Park and the beach have been an active hub for recreation and cultural activity in the community for generations. Norman will lead us through the changing soundscape, which includes a diverse body of programmatic, architectural, and ecological spaces that comprise Jackson Park., Norman has led sound walks in Washington Park in 2015 as part of the Night Out in the Parks Program and 2021, as part of the Chicago Architectural Biennial, in Woodlawn and Jackson Park. This walk through the park offers us an opportunity to connect with our environment. Listening together as a group serves as a re-presencing in the face of social-media algorithms disrupting and disconnecting us and an absence-ing of Black and Brown bodies due to gentrification, anti Black and anti-immigrant violence, the corrupt criminal justice system, and the prison industrial complex.

What is a sound walk?

A guided exploration of a site using listening-focused skills. We will listen to how the site sounds as we move through it. Through listening, we have a tool to define communities and ourselves. We can also use those tools to shape who we are and where we live. We will be listening for changes, interactions, conditions, weather, traffic, animals, insects, people, vehicles, and other factors that make a place what it is. We start by listening in our silence and being mindful of our consciousness. Then we focus on how we sound as we move throughout the site. We then expand our listening to what is near to us, what has just passed us, and then what is ahead.

What to consider whilst walking:

How do these sounds define where you are on the site? What sounds are constant? What sounds change the site? What moves through it? What are the durations? What do you expect to hear? What did you remember hearing? What sounds do you like? What sounds don’t you like?

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Tags: Chicago, Hyde Park, Hyde Park Art Center, Jackson Park, Norman W. Long, Re-Presencing Soundwalk, Re-Presencing Soundwalk by Norman W. Long