So, last week I shared this invitation: listen to the sounds around you and observe how they make you feel. Tensed, irritated, joyful, relaxed? Happy exploration!
This weekend, I was planning to go to a techno set by one of my favourite DJs, which would have been an awesome setting to explore this invitation (notice the impact of sounds on my body, energy, thoughts, feelings, etc.) but due to an unforeseen issue (I’ll spare you the details, but it looked something like 🏃♀️🚽💩😅), I decided to go back to bed and let my friends go have fun without me. 🥲
By noon, I was feeling better and met them for lunch in a park. Despite most of them waking up between 2-4am to get to the event (which could make many people grumpy), the verdict was anonymous: their night was amazing. The music was not the only actor in making this night memorable, but it was definitely a big part of it. Having been in these events a few times, I can say that feeling the base through my body left me in awe many times. And of course, the awesome drops always bring a big smile to my face. But back to my friends: for some of them, the music literally felt like “medicine”. So clearly, sound can have a positive and beautiful impact on how we feel.
And, it can also make us pretty annoyed, irritated or stressed. That happened the next day when my boyfriend and I were heading for a nice, quiet picnic date by the water in Parc Jean-Drapeau. We had initially cancelled that plan since we thought it was the F1 weekend (the noise of the cars was a no-go for us), but realized it’s next week. I was all excited to feel at peace in nature, but as we got closer, my excitement turned into bitterness when we realized there was a Picnic Electronik event. I was pissed! 😂 It was definitely killing the “nice, quiet picnic date” vibe.
Fortunately, we found a backup plan: bixi to the next Island. We could still hear the music from afar, but just a little bit. Relieved! I could now focus on the birds and enjoy the sunset.
Why am I telling you this story? Because I think it serves as a nice parallel to the underwater noise problem. Being imposed a sound we don’t enjoy, or worse, that stresses us, can be a very unpleasant experience. A concert is not too dramatic, and we had the option to leave, but marine life often doesn’t have that option. Especially since sound gets “trapped” under the surface and can even travel for thousands of kilometres at certain depths. When we dive in the ocean, we don’t realize it as our ears are not optimized to hear underwater, but again, it’s not because we don’t have this feature that other animals don’t. So… how do you think you would feel if you heard cargo ships while in your bed, kitchen, and living room almost 24/7? And that’s without considering how these sounds also affect their echolocation system. 🙃
I hope this little story sparks some thoughts/ideas/reflections about the topic (one I like to think about: what if we could hear bombs explode at the opposite side of the world? Would it change politics?) And on a positive note, if we recall the beginning, sound can be very healing as well. ✨
This whole weekend served as inspiration for my project, just as this amazing art piece I stumbled upon while researching water art projects:
From the artist’s website: Afin de sensibiliser le grand public sur les enjeux mondiaux liés à l’eau, l’artiste Belo a créé une image composée de 66 000 verres d’eau de pluie colorée simulant les niveaux d’impuretés trouvées dans l’eau partout sur la planète (so cool!). Cette œuvre majeure, de 3 600 pieds carrés représentant un enfant dans le ventre maternel, a mis l’accent sur l’essentialité de l’eau pour tout être vivant, avant même sa naissance.
This week’s aquarelle brought many insights. After feeling really happy about it, I thought: let’s add even more magic! My enthusiasm gave me the courage to make a bold move and add red/orange/purple rays coming out of the heart, but the result was far from what I had pictured 😅 I tried patching it. Sometimes it works, but not this time. I had to accept my chef d’oeuvre turned into a failure, and realize that every mistake will help me learn what I need to translate my mind’s vision onto the paper 😄🫶
Picture after the initial mess-up. The tree looked like it was bleeding (not was I was going for lol). I had already tamed the red at this point:
What I ended up with. Not bad, but didn’t match my vision. Will try again and probably create many watercolor trees along the way. 💚
p.s. this week’s writing could be improved, but it’s again late on a Sunday night and bedtime is calling (doesn’t it sound familiar? hahaha), so I’ll keep it imperfect and wish you a beautiful week!