The Longest Echo is an exhibition of ceramic, audio installation, and performance from artists Mayma Awaida and Emilie Monty. In this exhibition, the artists translate their ceramic practice into performance, gifting artworks to public recipients in exchange for the recording of voice-note offerings. The collected voice-note offerings are then integrated into ceramic listening vessels, which over the duration of the exhibition will accumulate and share the new stories.
The Longest Echo is an iterative work which first took shape as an artist residency at the Commonwealth of New Bayswater Post Office as a publicly accessible exchange that traded tattoos (designed and made by Awaida) for voice-note offerings (collected and edited by Monty).
As their residency unfolded, likewise did the journey of the artwork: designs inspired by the artist’s own ceramic practice were translated into visual scratchings on the participant, who in turn left a sensory marking of their own as a voice recording, born anew as anonymous USB letters in the hands of the recipient.
In its exhibition format, The Longest Echo returns to its material origins of ceramics and audio recordings and posits the gallery space as an imaginary world; a place where each of the voice offerings can find a home and sustain their fantastical potential.
Images: The Longest Echo, photos Dan McCabe / Artdoc
