Can you listen to the same river twice?

Created in collaboration with Molly Reichert, Nicholas Knouf, Jonathan Zorn, and Nona Marie Invie, Can you listen to the same river twice? is a listening station that invites the participant to bring their ear close to the river. By amplifying the water and using its variations to modulate the continuously changing sound, the river tells the narrative. The listener’s sense of hearing is heightened to hear a steel foundry across the shore, a voice singing, a foghorn. Questions take shape: How long is a river? Where does it start? What does it sound like? What is it made of? This listening station invites participants to quiet down along side the river’s edge. To engage in the deep task of listening. To re-position themselves alongside the concrete floodwalls, where they can feel the water passing by. To feel their own solidity and temporality near the river that is constantly leaving us, but has been here all along.

Can you listen to the same river twice? was first exhibited for Northern Spark 2013 in St. Paul, MN. With Monica Haller, we are developing the project for along the entire length of the Mississippi River.