Commissioned by Dorset Moon, Weymouth based artist Ra Zamora has created Call of the Wild, a sound installation inspired by the wolf’s howl that will play as part of the Under the Moon supporting programme at all three locations. It’s intended to create a primordial experience to transport people to the wild corners of their psyche, whilst feeling the life force and restorative effect of the male and female wolves howling alone and then merging together.
As Dorset Moon prepares for its first landing in Bournemouth on Friday (29 June), Ra took time to answer a few questions about the work.
What inspired Call of the Wild and what do you hope audiences will take from it?
The wolf howl has always been a sound that thrills me and awakens my spirit alongside a deep longing for my soul mate so there was a natural progression to put wolves howling with the moon into a soundscape collage.
I’ve also been exploring binaural beats and theta brainwaves to induce feelings of relaxation and wellbeing. I hope that this soundscape, mixed with passages of poetry will reach to the core of people’s primal psyche to excite and inspire them.
How did you make it and is there anything you would have done differently?
Ideally, I’d like to have recorded and filmed wolves in the wild which I hope to do in the future, but equipment is very expensive and howling can be unreliable if you don’t manage to find a nearby wolf pack!
Instead, I trawled through zoological archives to find the howls that ran deep and screened out lots of audio due to the background hiss of recording equipment.
There’s something very primal about the moon, how does it inform your work?
For me the moon has always held great mystery, magic and clarity. I love the moon goddess mythologies surrounding the Roman hunter goddess Diana, the Greek Artemis and the Celtic Arianrhod, governing women’s wisdom, intuition and fertility.
Wolves are also an important part of folklore and mythology; do you feel a connection?
I am big animal lover and grew up in the countryside alongside cats and deerhounds. One of my happiest early memories was our scruffy but gorgeous dog Guava howling along to my dad playing the piano. As a child I fantasised about having a pet panther and a pet she-wolf to howl with and protect me as I roamed around the roads and countryside.
If you could spend an hour on the Moon how would you spend it?
I’d probably feel totally in awe and moonstruck! I’d enjoy the lack of gravity, jump and down and leap about in my space suit like a luna-tic!
Dorset Moon can be seen in Sherborne Abbey (5-7 July) and Nothe Fort in Weymouth (12-14 July). Find out more at www.dorsetmoon.com.