Tàpies’ Chairs: Joana Gomila

Aquest event forma part de: The Chairs of Tàpies

Tàpies’ Chairs is a series of multidisciplinary sound actions organised in the context of the Tàpies Centenary Year, with the collaboration of Pompeu Fabra University. The proposal focuses on the voice and words to create a sound accompaniment to oral memory. In this way, each of the thirteen sessions will feature a creator whose starting point will be the chair, taken as a performative object, linking back to the creative universe of Tàpies through the expressive languages and settings of the present day.

The action of the sixth chair of Tàpies is We Hear I, by Joana Gomila. In recent months, Gomila has travelled with a homemade microphone (placed on a cork), a small guitar, a chair and the Ursula K. Le Guin version of the Tao Te Ching. Over the course of her journey, she has sought out places to stay, which at first were churches and chapels. During the process, she has found shelter in gardens, coves, caves and farmers’ fields. The goal of her travels was to read a poem from the Tao, then do a vocal improvisation-meditation that would make her at one with herself for ten minutes at each place of refuge. From the material arising from this, Gomila has made a selection comprising the basis for this living installation, conceived to be shown at the Fundació Antoni Tàpìes. Oïm (We Hear) means paying attention to what we sense with our ears. Oïm means to listen actively, willingly, involving ourselves in our surroundings.

Joana Gomila is a musician, singer and composer, and is co-director of the Suralita centre for creation. In her album projects Folk Souvenir, Paradís and Així Deçà (the latter two with Laia Vallès), she has been inspired by the sensitive material of tradition, along with improvisation, experimentation and thought, conceived as a living, musical approach to things. Gomila won the 2020 Altaveu Award, the Ciutat de Palma Award in 2017 (for Folk Souvenir) and 2020 (for Paradís), the Enderrock Critics’ Award in 2020 (for Paradís) and the Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel Award of the OCB in 2018.

Since 2012, Gomila has created the music and soundscapes of many shows documentaries. She has worked with Lali Ayguadé, Andrés Lima, Els Escarlata, Hotel iocandi, Mariantònia Oliver and Cesc Mulet, amongst others. She has also collaborated with numerous musicians, including Joan Miquel Oliver, James Acaster, Miquel Serra, Iago Aguado, Marcel·lí Bayer, Toni Vaquer, Celeste Alías and Anna Subirana.

“I am an unsettled person, a musician, and my experimental urges connect with my love for popular music and sound archives, which I have been fortunate to be able to locate and research through my duo with Laia Vallès. I also have ties to and great love for the performing arts, and often compose music for dance, the circus, cinema and other unclassifiable expressive languages. I need to be able to dream and imagine futures with the people close to me, surrounded by a human flux able to constantly enliven my spirit.”