Ayumi Paul, The Singing Project, 2022
Artist in Residence 2022
Ayumi Paul
A violinist, composer and artist, Ayumi Paul’s work is anchored in a practice of listening. Her art departs from the intersections of sound, composition and perception. Informed by the resonant frequencies of material, and the understanding that everything is animate, her most recent research focuses on states of rest. It asks us to sense, in a non-linear way, what is there when one does not actively interfere. Working with paper, textile, stitching, as well as performance and installation, her work can be described as an exploration of connectivity. It allows us to experience a realm of synchronicity between moving and being moved, between performer and performed, and between the body and the imagination.
© Gropius Bau
The Singing Project
The Singing Project is a fluid composition and collective practice that unfurls through time and space. The permeable structure of the project activates sound formations that emerge anew in every moment, and does not end with the presentation at the Gropius Bau. To prepare for these workshops, the artist studied singing traditions ranging from opera, the Tao of voice and polyphonic overtones, to healing techniques and historical and mythological approaches to passing down ritual songs. By combining what she learns and weaving it together with her own intuitive practice, she generates a flexible singing method rooted in the female voice and in collective learning processes. The project unfolds endlessly, as an open-ended practice that anyone can take back with them and activate anywhere, anytime.
Since 24 November, the project is taking on a new spatial form in a freely accessible space on the first floor of the Gropius Bau: arranged as an open score, five rooms hold space for continuous possibilities to sing together, surrounded by displayed excerpts from Paul’s growing archive.
Ayumi Paul composing simultaneity, 2021
© Ayumi Paul, photo: Debora Mittelstaedt
Event Programme
About Ayumi Paul
Ayumi Paul is an artist, violinist and composer who explores the interdependency of phenomena through listening and engaging with the nonlinearity of time.
Trained as a classical violinist since the age of five, Paul’s interdisciplinary approach to exploring how sound influences perception dismantles limitations of what we see and how we relate to one another. Her distinctive artistic language incorporates materials such as paper, thread and sound recordings, integrating invisible layers of reality like vibration and imagination as spaces for communal creation. Although she works closely with scientific technologies, she consistently returns to the body and its inherent ways of sensing beyond rational comprehension. Her projects often manifest as new languages, rituals and heightened sensitivities, which can be immediately applied to everyday life.
Ayumi Paul’s work has recently been exhibited at the National Gallery Singapore (2018 and 2021), Kunsthalle Osnabrück (2020), SFMOMA (2021), Auditorium Parco della Musica (2022), haubrok foundation (2023), Gropius Bau (2023) and Georg Kolbe Museum (2024), among others. In 2021, she was awarded a fellowship stipend by the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome. The Singing Project, a collective practice and singing sculpture, continues to be hosted by the Gropius Bau in Berlin, where she was the Artist in Residence throughout 2022.
Timefold score, 2022
© Ayumi Paul, photo: Debora Mittelstaedt
Lalibela Full Moon 3003, studio view, 2022
© Ayumi Paul, photo: Debora Mittelstaedt
Ayumi Paul
© Ayumi Paul, photo: Debora Mittelstaedt
Salzlieder (process), 2022
© Ayumi Paul, photo: Debora Mittelstaedt
Bless the Moon
Ayumi Paul
Curator Natasha Ginwala and Ayumi Paul talk about rhythms, cycles and the collective practice of The Singing Project.
Sounding Seeds
To get us in the mood for the summer, this year’s Artist in Residence, Ayumi Paul, has developed a new sound work as the first in a series of sound pieces created in attunement with the solstices and equinoxes of the year. Sounding Seeds is a sonic journey – embedded in breathing and vocal exercises – through the spheres that inspire Ayumi Paul’s The Singing Project. Following the rhythm of the earth’s yearly cycle around the sun, they explore the myriad ways in how sound and song have been shaping our world.
Since 24 November, the project is taking on a new spatial form in a freely accessible space on the first floor of the Gropius Bau: arranged as an open score, five rooms hold space for continuous possibilities to sing together, surrounded by displayed excerpts from Paul’s growing archive.
Ayumi Paul | Sounding Seeds Summer 2022
© Gropius Bau
Ayumi Paul | Sounding Seeds Autumn 2022
© Gropius Bau
Ayumi Paul | Sounding Seeds Winter 2022
© Gropius Bau