HOW THE KNOT BINDS
Maeve Gilchrist & Kevork Mourad
In this first-time collaboration between Syrian artist Kevork Mourad and Scottish harper and composer Maeve Gilchrist, these two Silkroad artists bring together their respective mediums and cultural backgrounds to create a work of immediate relevance.
As our current situation suspends our normal realities, we as a community are being forced to hone in on what remains consistent in our lives. A sharpening of observation and inward reflection allow us to experience what is the essence of our lives. Around us, the planet carries on its cycle, allowing the tedium and challenge of the winter months to bear fruit in a spring performance, only to carry on the work after the blossoms have fallen.
In this collaboration of sound and imagery, Maeve and Kevork seek to harness the linear energy of time relentlessly moving forward in spite of our current sedentary state. Drawing motivic inspiration from the elaborate knotwork of the Armenian Khachkar sculptures and the remarkably similar early Christian knot-work of the Celtic Isles, these two artists come together to create a vignette that both celebrates the irrepressible movement of the natural-world while creating a moment of suspension in our personal experiences of time, honoring the past to inform the present.
The piece is divided into three sections involving a live harp performance and a pre-recorded ‘wash’ of sound which is embedded into Kevork’s video. In the pre-recorded soundscape, the sounds of the brush on the canvas as well as the kinetic ‘clicking’ of the metal levers on the harp create a ‘working backdrop’ from which the melodies emerge. Morphing into one another and hinting harmonically and texturally at the two respective cultures until they coalesce into an overt celebration of the connection found. As the melodic line evolves and morphs in shape and mood, Kevork will follow the rhythm and melody of the music, using improvisatory and gestural lines to conjure Celtic motifs, then meld them into Armenian motifs, transforming these manmade sculptural designs into the natural landscape that inspired them.
About Maeve Gilchrist
About Kevork Mourad
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