The Echo’s Scribe installation.
Echo’s Scribe was a text-based art installation by Tasmanian artist Alexander Okenyo. It was part of this year’s Ten Days on the Island Festival.
Okenyo handwrote (or scribbled, in some cases) rough notes, mathematical equations, private stories, and hospital records on pieces of thick A4 paper and hung them along the walls of a single room at the Willow Court Barracks.
Interspersed between them were abstract drawings. There was only one drawing that is not abstract. In fact, it was the only detailed drawing in the entire room. It depicted a doorway and a window, and not much else. Why it was the only detailed drawing in the room, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m not ‘art-y’ enough to figure it out.
Piles of thick A4 paper and bricks have been placed around the room, arranged as if they were abandoned there.
The art was accompanied by an audio track that included scribbling sounds, humming, and singing. It was pleasant to listen to, yet eerie at the same time. There seemed to be a hint of sadness in the humming and singing, as if the people doing it were suffering from some form of mental illness. The more I listened to the audio, the more I felt like the writing and drawings were the work of former Willow Court patients. This is likely what Okenyo was going for.
The whole installation has got to be the spookiest one I have seen so far in my life.
You had to step into a single room at the Willow Court Barracks (pictured) to experience Echo’s Scribe.
