New installation in Columbus to capture sounds of a Black neighborhood

Children at play, traffic sounds, ice cream trucks, bird songs, fireworks, sirens and more provide the soundtrack for a new art installation.

Beginning Wednesday, the sound installation “This is a Black Neighborhood” will fill Sarah Gormley Gallery, a Downtown space normally occupied by paintings or drawings. The work is created by Allie Martin, the second Aminah Robinson Fellowship and Residency Program writer-in-residence. Her project is a collaboration between the gallery, the Columbus Museum of Art and the Black Sound Lab at Dartmouth College, where Martin is an assistant professor in the department of music.

“I’m constructing a Black neighborhood sonically in the gallery,” Martin said. “Sounds of construction, public transportation, children playing, music. It’s a soundscape of Black life … composing around them and reflecting them.”

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The 30-year-old artist, a native of Washington, D.C., who now lives in New Hampshire, recorded sounds in Columbus, Washington D.C. and elsewhere to paint a portrait of a neighborhood, avoiding cliches of fear but remaining true to urban Black life.

As visitors move through the gallery, their motion will trigger different soundscapes, creating a plethora of environmental sounds. Each soundscape will have a bit of text to give it context.

“The gallery is going to become an instrument that can be played depending on you how move,” Martin said. “I want people to play the room.”

Deidre Hamlar, curator at large at the museum and director of the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project, said that Martin’s work is an ideal complement to the work of the late Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, the Columbus artist who captured Black life in the historic housing project Poindexter Village and other locations.

Robinson, a prolific multimedia artist, also created musical scores, something many who admire her work may not know. Her scores were made with a combination of notes on traditional treble and bass clef lines, and with non-traditional graphic designs. Martin’s installation will feature interpretations of some of Robinson’s compositions, including “Symphonic Poem.”

As Robinson created her art works, she listened to classical and jazz music.

“She thought music was tied directly to her output as a visual artist,” Hamlar said. “It was her foundation.”

Recently, Robinson’s piano was returned to the living room of her house, which is located on Sunbury Road in East Columbus.

Martin, who has become familiar with Robinson’s art, said she has found constant inspiration in the house.

“The house just says, ‘Make big art,’” Martin said. “The house is egging me on.”

In researching her project and gaining ideas for sounds, Martin consulted with a variety of Columbus artists, including writer Hanif Abdurraqib, author and poet Scott Woods, artist Richard Duarte Brown, and writer and drumline band leader Damon Mosely.

Martin, who began playing violin as a 5-year-old, graduated from American University and earned master’s and doctorate degrees in music from Indiana University. She is an ethnomusicologist exploring relationships between race, sound and gentrification. Her work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, the Society for American Music and the American Musicological Society.

At Dartmouth, Martin runs the Black Sound Lab that focuses on intersections between Black sonic life and digital work. She also coordinated the website Black COVID Care, which considers how Black people have kept themselves well during the pandemic.

When asked if the gallery installation would have visuals accompanying the sounds, Martin said “not so much.”

“I find that as soon as I put something up on the walls, sound becomes secondary,” she said.

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Gallery owner Sarah Gormley is perfectly willing to take a break from hanging visual art on the walls; she said she is delighted to use the gallery for “meaningful conversations.”

“This exhibition is a perfect example of the powerful arts community we have here in Columbus,” Gormley said.

Hamlar said that Martin, like Aminah Robinson, is intent on giving back to the community and plans, among other projects, a workshop at the nearby Shepard Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library. Hamlar also said that the museum intends to reenact a form of “This is a Black Neighborhood” for a museum exhibit planned in 2024.

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At a glance

“This is a Black Neighborhood” will continue from Wednesday through Aug. 25 in the Sarah Gormley Gallery, 95 N. High St. Hours: noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. An opening reception will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday. Admission is free. Visit sarahgormleygallery.com or columbusmuseum.org.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 'This is a Black Neighborhood' installation to open Downtown