Sarah Hopper
Sculpture, sound and the hidden conversations beneath everyday life.
London-based artist Sarah Hopper joins Bored Peach Club this September for a three-week residency exploring voice, memory and the traditions that bring communities together.
Working across sculpture, sound and film, Sarah creates modular works that evolve in response to the places they inhabit. Drawing from dreams, memory and psychoanalytic thinking, her practice explores the invisible aspects of human experience, from secrets and subconscious thoughts to the things we struggle to put into words. Repetition, rhythm and the human voice play a central role, inviting audiences into a deeply sensory way of listening.
During her residency, Sarah will be researching Gozo’s rich traditions of choir singing and bell ringing, investigating how collective voices shape identity, ritual and belonging. Through field recordings, conversations and collaborative vocal experiments, she hopes to create new audio works that connect personal experience with shared cultural memory.
Her research builds on a recent experience inside the bell tower of Southwark Cathedral in London, where she observed the centuries-old practice of bell ringing. Standing 40 metres above the cathedral’s crossing, surrounded by bells weighing over two tonnes, she experienced the tower swaying with every ring.
“The experience is closer to being on a boat than in a building. It’s a precious experience to watch and listen to this ancient activity being practised at the centre of a hectic metropolis like London.”
While in Gozo, Sarah plans to document the island’s sounds, meet local choirs and bell ringers, and work alongside residents who are willing to share their knowledge and traditions. The residency will remain intentionally open-ended, allowing discoveries made in the first weeks to shape the direction of the final work.
As Sarah puts it:
“Art is play. It isn’t about utility. It often makes no sense, and that’s exactly what I find valuable. Dreams function a bit like art. They connect us to our subconscious selves, and making that invisible inner life visible is something I’m endlessly curious about.”
Contact
info(@)boredpeachclub.com