TRACE: a Memorial Environmental Sound Installation

Poster Statement

Trace is an interactive sound installation that is site-specific to the network of hiking trails near the Burgess Shale fossil beds in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. The installation transforms the trails into a landscape of sound recordings that commemorate personal loss. Walking through the installation is like wandering through a memorial sculpture garden where, instead of visible monuments, hikers weave their way through memorial poems, songs and stories that play in response to their movement through the landscape. Contributors may submit recordings to the sound collection which evolves with each submission. Trace explores loss and transformation in an historical moment when time, memory and the body are undergoing dramatic shifts in cultural meaning.