ALMA MATER BY YUVAL AVITAL SNEAK-PEEK

Largest sound installation ever done in Italy till today, ALMA MATER is the extraordinary new multimedia creation by the artist and composer Yuval Avital.

It is a 1,200 square meters allegorical scene which unites tradition, technology, art, sound, design and crafts evoking the ancient symbol of motherhood. ALMA MATER was first presented between July and August 2015 during EXPO 2015 in Milan at La Fabbrica del Vapore, a major venue for contemporary art and large-scale exhibitions.

THE HEART OF ALMA MATER is a forest made of 140 loudspeakers, mostly in sphere or cylindric shape, made of clay, stone, marble, cement, or raw cones. From the ‘sonic forest’ - the largest sound installation ever created in Italy - diffuse hundreds of fragments of recorded voices of women - mostly grandmothers - from all over the world: chants, songs, whispers, prayers, fairy tales, lullabies, mantras - combined with sounds of the feminine archetype in nature - seismic vibrations, volcanoes, sounds of oceans and water-drops. This overwhelming soundscape, an outcome of a two years long composition and research process, was produced in collaboration with international scholars, universities, musicology and anthropology centers.