Sarah Nawotka is an American artist whose practice focuses primarily on sound and improvisational collaboration with other artists working in sound, video, painting, and movement. Using vocal improvisations, field recordings, and effect processing, she conjures a spontaneous sentimentality that, at the same time, resists and disavows sentimentality’s concretizing and immortalizing tendencies. Salient features of her improvisations include asynchronous melodies echoing the multiplicity of voices within the self and the inconsistent nature of temporality. She uses loop-based soundscaping as an immediate form of capturing an organic moment, layering it to evolve into something indistinguishable and transforming it into a tangible, topographical substance, while immortalizing the original ephemera with the hope of eventual decay.
The work during her residency at Platform during June and July 2017 was primarily inspired by the embodiment of emotional reprocessing of trauma and how it allows the body to transgress spatiality and temporality. The symbolic language developed in this chapter of her practice is characterized by her techniques of affecting the voice and the space and exploring multi-loop based composition. The recordings from this period will be released in 2018 under the moniker, Dråsa. She participated in several performances and collaborations with Vaasa-based multidisciplinary artists.
Nawotkas activities during the residency
Performances:
Ether: Water – Vasa Simhall – June 30
Agoo Festival – Kaserntorget – July 8
Sticknick – Jakobstad – July 15
Keep Treading Release – Raawka – July 26
Ljuset: Short art film
Sound: Sarah Nawotka
Acting and lyrics: Susanne Marins
Filmography: Patricia Rodas
Keep Treading: CD release with handprinted sleeves