RECITATION REVISED: Repeating aloud, imagining and feeling at the same time

Artist Garrett Phelan recording sound in the field where the Battle of the Somme took place.

This sound work employs Orpen’s poem A Memory of the Somme as a textual source. Orpen sent the poem to Evelyn St George, his patron and lover, whose own son died fighting in the war. The poem conveys a sense of what Orpen experienced during his first visits to the Somme and the profound impact it had on him. ‘Then this place was Hell – now all is Peace’, he wrote.

Phelan’s sound work (below) comprises segments of different readings of the poem made over the course of a lengthy recording session and edited into one track (5:12 min). During each reading, Phelan progressed through different approaches and emotional responses, transforming Orpen’s text into a work of more personal resonance.

\ Back to project

Explore more