Title: Nightjar Call, 28 Beats

Date: 2024

Medium: Stones

Artist: Shahnaz Said

Exhibition: En Route, 2024

From press release

Nightjar Call, 28 Beats consists of 12 sets of stones laid out in a single line with foot-long gaps between the sets that make up a total of 28 stones. Each stone gathered from my own garden in Kuala Lumpur represents a single ‘beat’ made by a Nightjar I ‘recorded’ in 2016, one of many ‘recordings’ over the years. The 28 stones in this work are the first 28 beats out of a total of 165, recorded numerically on paper and not via any electronic recording device. The Nightjar calls out in sets of single evenly spaced beats with a consistent duration of pauses between each set. Over the years, I’ve been intrigued by the distinct call of the Nightjar heard from around our garden. Its ‘sonic’ vocalisation would resonate through the black night like a strange code to be de-coded. I’d previously translated the beats intuitively into marks on various surfaces and using materials, including concrete and stone. For this work, through the process of reduction, I use stones as themselves as ancient markers of time and number. A mute presence in a London garden of a bird once heard oceans away in another place.

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