Flow my Tears by Susan Philipsz for SCAPE Public Art Season 2019

Images courtesy of SCAPE Public Art. Photos by Heather Milne.

“Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!

Exiled for ever, let me mourn;

Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings,

There let me live forlorn.”

Susan Philipsz’s voice echoed from beneath the Hamish Hay bridge, singing an Elizabethan lute song composed in 1596. It lilted through space as though the river itself was singing to us. From under the oldest cast iron bridge in New Zealand, here in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Flow my Tears created space for contemplating loss and grief in its many forms.

Susan Philipsz is acclaimed internationally for her sculptural audio pieces that activate both the hard fabric of architectural space and the emotional resonances of a site’s history. The locations of her site-specific installations often connect histories of transport and movement with memories of trauma. Philipsz has said, “sound can really act as a trigger for memory. It can bring you back to a particular place and time.”