Email: svetlana.atlavina @ gmail com Art portfolio: original prints, ceramics, mixed media installation and workshops.

Distorted Bells

It was my discovery of a dual function for church bells that became the impetus for the collection of clay pieces. It shocked me that the sound of church bells, normally associated with a sense of solace or community, could become a siren for coming destruction, an invitation to take safe shelter below the ground.

Initially, I researched the internal mechanism for the clapper and the bell's wall. Using porcelain, I began to transform its recognisable shape into something melted, deformed, and flattened. I wanted to make artefacts incapable of creating a sound that might in some way relate to the silencing of church bells after an aerial attack.

Further research brought an unexpected turn: the porcelain fragments continue to sound even when flattened. Many are unexpectedly resonant after thermal changes.

Click to listen to the soundscape of the flattened bells that still might have recognisable sounds of bells.

https://soundcloud.com/svetlana-atlavina/voice-and-sounds-of-bells

The collection of porcelain pieces presents a multitude of distorted bells.

Perhaps values, beliefs and culture are not so easily silenced.