SOUNDING GESTURES: Alongside The Gdansk Winterfield Diptych

THE WINTERFELD SCORES 2024

by Kirsten Stromberg and Benedetta Manfriani

The National Museums in Warsaw, as part of the Lost and Found Conference. https://thelostandfoundlisbon.weebly.com/

SOUNDING GESTURES: Alongside The Gdansk Winterfield Diptych was a workshop facilitated by vocal artist Benedetta Manfriani and sound/visual artist Kirsten Stromberg. The workshop focused on re-positioning the art object through embodied listening practices and sounding gestures.   Working with The Gdansk Winterfield Diptych in the National Museum in Warsaw (NMW), we emulated the bodily gestures within this complex work, translating them into sound with the voice and body, and listened, responded, and resonated with each other’s movements and sounds.   Exploring embodied and sonic acts of translation and relation, we examined what is lost and what is found within the artwork, through a series of Text Scores composed by Manfriani and Stromberg called The Winterfeld Scores.

The Gdansk Wintefeld Diptych, by an unknown artist, dates back to c. 1430. The two wings of the work represent scenes from the Passion of Christ and the ascension of the penitent Mary Magdalen, who is covered in hair and supported by 7 angels, raising her up to heaven.  The gestures of the figures reveal a breadth of human experience in the body, touching on violence and injustice against the innocent, as well as care, compassion, and redemption for those who are suffering.  What does it mean to understand and relate to these gestures and human experiences today, 600 years after this work was made?  As both a critical and reparative act, we aim to re-position and reflect on this painting, in order to unveil whether there is, or is not, any relation to contemporary questions. Through exploring time-based practices- sound and body movement- this workshop was interested in parallel knowledges that break time and help us reflect on these issues today; how we can unfold, re-vision/re-sound, question, and un/hold these ways of being together.

You can read more about the work in the article published on parsejournal Within Breathing Space or Through a Cracked Divider? by Anna Markowska https://parsejournal.com/article/within-breathing-space-or-through-a-cracked-divider/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKi7pdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHvPGsrMOa0W_YqwQbMmCwRRPd6ximNJvavyc7IEcBdEdb2PP4yarLNgy4Wxp_aem_-NJwJUckSJCWXBKCiXmGKA