Youmna Saba

The idea of an instrument vibrating when subjected to a sound source is at the base of my research in sound and composition in the past few years. I recently completed a project, “La Réserve des Non-Dits” (the storage of the unspoken), at the Quai Branly museum in Paris, that aimed at capturing the sounds of their collection of musical instruments in their passive state: meaning, the sounds that these instruments are emitting by being placed in the storage; the resonances they produce sympathetically.

It all started after I visited the museum and was struck by the six-story tower, with around 9000 instruments from all over the world; instruments that are barely visible, shielded behind tinted glass, showing only to those who take the time to stop and look.

As a musician, I felt great enthusiasm at first, then a lack of breath, before frustration settled in. Can an instrument express anything when it has been dislocated, isolated and silenced?

I embarked on a 6-month long journey of exploration that focused on looking for and capturing the sounds of these instruments. I was very much surprised to find that these instruments despite their state, are still resonating and interacting with the surrounding sounds in the museum, just as I speculated, looking at them from afar. I documented these sounds and created a sound library of 139 sounds, that are now under a creative commons license, and put together an installation that is now on view at the museum and that transmits the sounds of some selected instruments, live in the museum, thanks to microphones placed inside the instruments and speakers placed outside the tower.

This project was my way to engage with the possibilities of sound as a portal to unaccessible narratives, transforming the tower’s glass shield into a porous layer that invites the viewer into a presence that is beyond the physical appearance: seemingly dormant objects hold a lot of information in their matter, shape and placement, despite being silenced and deprived of their function, by isolation and extrapolations.

Specially commissioned by the RCU for the AlUla Wellness Festival, the Resonant Shell is an immersive installation by Lebanese artist Nathalie Harb, in collaboration with musician Youmna Saba.

Conceived as both sculpture and immersive architecture, the Resonant Shell responds to the extraordinary landscapes of AlUla with its abstract morphology of deserts and stone massifs, by offering contemplative haptic, tactile and sonic experiences to its visitors.

Placed at the threshold between oasis and city, the artwork appears as a protective shell wrapped in a double layer of textiles and clay. The translucent outer skin gives a hint of the hidden spiral staircase behind, which elevates visitors into an upper level with a sublime perspective onto the oasis, the surrounding landscape and the open sky. Conversely, the core of mudbrick creates an inward-looking atmosphere of soothing silence where hidden speakers diffuse the soft acoustics of the desert underground. The Shell resonates with the sounds interpreted by musician Youmna Saba, recorded in the oasis, following water paths and the nearby ancient Nabataean site of Hegra, where more than 2000-year-old tombs carved into the stone carry the stories of an enigmatic civilization.

Old and new, familiar and alienating worlds temporarily collide within the space as visitors come and go.

Credits

An installation by Nathalie Harb

Design by Nathalie Harb, Gabriele Pascolini and Alex Tzortzis de Paz

Sound Conception and Composition by Youmna Saba

Acoustic Consultancy by 21dB | Acoustics & Audio Consultants

Sound Recordings by Anthony Sahyoun

Project management by Gabriele Pascolini

Visual identity by Lama Zouein

Soundscape compositions for three spaces in the Design Space AlUla, giving the visitors different experiences of the richness of the region, from nature to arts and crafts to artistic and design explorations.

Composed and designed soundscapes for the museum spaces in the historical Çinili Hamam, in Istanbul, inspired by the hamam tradition and culture.