Shenece Oretha: TOLLED Listening With/In Wakefield’s Sculpture Collection
28 October 2023 – 3 March 2024
Shenece Oretha has been commissioned to create an intervention inspired by Wakefield’s art collection. Since September 2022, Oretha has been working at The Hepworth Wakefield as artist-in-residence as part of 20/20 – a large-scale commissioning initiative led by University of the Arts London Decolonising Arts Institute.
During the residency, Oretha explored the relationship between sculpture and sound in modern British art. She researched how artists including Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore engaged with music, instruments and ideas that have a ‘sonic resonance’ and recorded sounds made by touching the sculptures with different materials. Based on these recordings and her research, Oretha has created a multi-channel sonic composition which will be played through specially devised speaker-sculptures placed among works from the collection that have inspired her composition.
Shenece Oretha artist residency with The Hepworth Wakefield is part of the 20/20 project, led by the UAL Decolonising Arts Institute and supported by funding from Arts Council England, Freelands Foundation and University of the Arts London.
Shenece Oretha
Oretha, was born in Monserrat in the Caribbean and now lives and works in London. Oretha’s work explores the act of listening and embodies the potential of sound to create sculptures, multi-channel installations, poetry and print. Oretha graduated in Fine Art at the Slade School of Art in 2018 and has had work exhibited at South London Gallery, Jerwood Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art. Oretha is a resident at Somerset House Studios.
