Barbara Freeman: Drifting the Bann

About

In the past, Barbara Freeman has created many visual/sound installations always responding to particular places both as a physical space and a sonic environment.

This is her first film and it follows the course of the River Bann in Northern Ireland with a montage of images and sounds, creating a poetic vision in both space and time that expresses aspects of culture in relation to place. She finds metaphors for locations along the river, choosing a geographic, historic or industrial aspect that brings the river alive: the dying oaks on Rams Island, the Gaelic rebellion in 1641 at Portadown, eel fishing at Toome.

The soundscapes always begin with the original field recordings, usually of water, bird or insect song, and are then interwoven with instrumental sounds and sometimes the human voice.

Barbara Freeman says of this work “A place is not just a physical space but also a collection of emotions, meditations and memories. Sometimes we look with our ears and listen with our eyes”.