Prelude/Requiem

Heather Nicol

May 13 - August 27, 2023

Reception + Artist Talk: Saturday, May 13, 2-4 PM 2023

Curated by Megan Kammerer

Toronto-based artist Heather Nicol's newest audio work positions itself at both extremes of the human life cycle. Built upon songs for lulling infants to sleep or easing passage into a final resting place, this immersive sound installation uses multichannel audio and light to encourage introspection across oral cultures.

Prelude/Requiem emerges from a twelve-year research practice in which the artist collected audio recordings that she made during encounters with her family members, fellow creatives, migrant youth, newcomers, travellers, and friends. Some were professional musicians, but most were not. A fifteen-year-old Nigerian refugee shares melodies from home while displaced in Berlin. A new mother sings Bulgarian lullabies to her unborn child. An aging Holocaust survivor recalls Hebrew cradle songs with assistance from his wife. A Turkish conductor leads choir in Minhrpa/Banff. 

Fragments of Manuel Cardosa’s 1624 polyphonic Requiem are added to layers of sighs, whispers, and drums. They signal the passage of time—a breath, a movement, or a procession. Every fragment is a capsule of connection. Its inflections preserve the sensitivity, vulnerability, and generosity of each encounter to celebrate the power of aural gathering. 

The VAC’s sunlit Loft Gallery becomes a sheltered listening space for reflection on how our individual and shared experiences overlap. Its peaceful environment encourages introspection, remembrance, and attention through generous acts of listening. Visitors are encouraged to slow down, recline, and rest in the installation’s soft setting. Together we can navigate the sounds that console us and commemorate the aural stories that ease us through fundamental transitions. We can practice communal listening as a radical act of care.

About the artist

Heather Nicol (she/her) is a Toronto-based artist whose practice includes immersive sound installation, sculpture, performance, and participatory actions. Her site-specific interventions explore the architectural, sonic, historic, and operational conditions of her locations. Installations by Nicol have been experienced in largescale concourse atriums such as the National Arts Centre / Centre National des Arts (Ottawa, Canada), Toronto’s Brookfield Place (Santiago Calatrava, Arts Brookfield Canada) and New York’s Winter Garden (Cesar Pelli, Arts Brookfield USA). Others include a major theatre (Harbourfront Center, Canada), rail terminuses (Union Station, Canada), former transit stations (ZK/U, Berlin, and Eastern Terminal, USA), a decommissioned theme park (Ontario Place, IN/FUTURE, Art Spin, Canada), Chateau de Courannces (Milly, France), and a storage locker facility (Art Spin, Canada). 

Throughout her interdisciplinary practice, she has worked with actors, musicians, choreographers, educators, and fabricators. She has generated site-driven exhibition possibilities as an independent curator for the John Paul Slusser Gallery, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and Critical Distance Centre for Curators.

Image Credit: Installation View of Heather Nicol, Tornado Pod, In/Future Festival, Ontario Place, Toronto, 2016.

Exhibition Programming

The VAC invites you to attend our Summer Exhibitions Opening Reception on Saturday, May 13, 2023, from 2 - 4 PM.  Join Curator Megan Kammerer for a guided walkthrough of this season’s multimedia installations alongside exhibiting artists Heather Nicol and Adam Basanta. Light refreshments will be provided. 

Visitors from Toronto are invited to take a free return trip shuttle bus to the VAC, departing from Factory Theatre at 12 PM on Saturday, May 13, 2023. The bus will depart the VAC at 4pm to return visitors to Toronto. Registration for the shuttle bus is required. Visit our events page for more details.