DIRECT BODILY EMPATHY

Sensing Sound

 

VENUE: Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre

17/05/2025 - 16/03/2026

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ARTISTS: Mel O’Callaghan, Roy de Maistre, Oskar Fischinger, Yona Lee, Len Lye, Ross Manning, Mia Salsjö with musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, David Sequeira

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CURATOR: Anna Briers 

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Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound explores sound as a medium, and the dimensions of sympathetic resonance, attuning with shared vibration, embodied knowledge, and the physical act of deep listening. ​The exhibition spans sonic structures and resonant objects, graphic scores and visual music, tangible motion sculptures and kinetic installations, architectural soundings, experimental films, composition, and choreography.

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Taking a polyphonic approach, Direct Bodily Empathy places leading twentieth-century artist Len Lye in concert with his contemporaries, elaborating on these historical echoes through new commissions and recent works by Aotearoa and international contemporary artists. Leading out a two-part exhibition programme, Sensing Sound asks: Can architecture be a musical score? Can the body be an instrument? Can colour be heard? How does this move us?

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Curated to celebrate the tenth anniversary year of the Len Lye Centre, the exhibition includes A Score for the Len Lye Centre, where artist composer Mia Salsjö has transposed the shimmering architectural contours of the art museum into a musical score. This composition was performed by an ensemble of musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Hamish McKeich, and displayed as a sound installation as part of an evolving performance programme.