Arts Everywhere: The SAA Podcast
Arts Everywhere: The SAA Podcast
Episode 23 - Arts Everywhere - The Art of Sound - with Dominique Ferraton
Have you ever paused to consider the symphony of sounds that paint the canvas of our daily lives? This episode invites sound artist Dominique Ferraton to share her transition from the hustle of Montreal to Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan. Against the backdrop of this tranquil environment, Dominique discusses the intimate process of capturing the auditory essence of her new home and the personal evolution of her multidisciplinary art practice. Her work focuses on community and place, while her insights into the tight-knit nature of small-town living might inspire you to tune into the sounds of your own locale.
Episode links:
Dominique's art website: https://www.dominiqueferraton.ca/
Dominique's audio editing + sound design website: https://audio.dominiqueferraton.ca/
Gravelbourg Artisan Coop: https://artisancoop.ca/
Laura St. Pierre: https://mackenzie.art/francophone-artist-laura-st-pierres-exhibition-signals-hope-in-the-face-of-environmental-upheaval/
The super saline lakes of Saskatchewan: https://www.waterrangers.ca/saline-lakes/
Thank you to SaskCulture, SKArts, and Sask Lotteries for your generous support.
Visit our website: https://www.saskartsalliance.ca
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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@saskatchewanartsalliance57
STARTING SEASON 2, THEME MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
Patrick Moon Bird: https://linktr.ee/PatrickMoonBird
https://www.facebook.com/PatrickMoonBirdMusic/
Kevin Power: http://www.kevinpower.net/ The Saskscapes Podcast: https://saskscapes.buzzsprout.com/
your collective voice for the arts across saskatchewan. This is arts everywhere. The saskatchewan arts alliance podcast. Hey, do me a favor, listen. Good, now listen again and pay close attention to the sound of your surroundings. Good, perhaps you could hear the sound of your heartbeat, the white noise of a fan or sounds coming from the outside through an open window. Now, if you had a recording device with you, even your smartphone, and you recorded the sounds around you, might you have a work of art? But what I mean is is the sound you capture, a form of art? Well, as it happens, there are artists who focus on the medium of sound art.
Speaker 1:Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material, not unlike a painting or a sculpture, and this episode's guest, dominique Ferraton, is drawn to sound art and, after years of volunteering in community radio and working as a technician in Montreal, dominique found Saskatchewan, calling her a longing for a smaller community than the busy, cosmopolitan, albeit fabulous, city of Montreal Gravelburg.
Speaker 1:Saskatchewan is where she settled and, let's face it, the landscape of sounds to be captured in Saskatchewan is endless, and Dominique aims to capture those that speak to her. And in this episode, dominique shares how she has evolved through life to find herself in a space where true appreciation of the simplicity of sound resides. And Gravelberg is a wonderful place I mean seriously you must visit. Sometimes it stands out as a unique community unlike any other place in the province with a huge Francescoise influence. The Gravelberg Artist Co-op has been Dominique's main creative outlet and they have some very cool events happening there. So be sure, as always, to follow the links in the show notes and, after listening to Dominique's story, do yourself a favor and go for a walk in your neighborhood and just listen and just listen. You'll have a new appreciation for sound and how those sounds create the basis for the art form called sound art well, thanks for taking the time to to chat and and and come on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Um, I feel like we've been trying to plan to figure out how and when to do this for a while, so I'm glad we, glad we got it fit in. Um, so we've, we've met once in person, uh, and that was at the first meeting of uh kind of the rural artists working group, which we're still kind of working towards figuring out, uh, what exactly that's going to look like and and uh and function as. So there was a meeting last fall or spring I'm losing complete sense of time. What was it? I think it was fall. Okay, yeah, I think you're right. It wasn't quite as far away as I thought it was. In Swift Current. There was a group of us that met at the Swift Current Art Gallery and yeah. So maybe I'm thinking, if you don't mind, just maybe take a few minutes and introduce yourself for those out there listening.
Speaker 3:Okay, so my name is Dominique Ferraton and I live in Goldberg, saskatchewan, a smallish town of about a thousand people. My partner and I moved there I guess four years ago now. We were living in Montreal. We're visiting.
Speaker 3:We decided to visit Gravelburg because my parents live here and it was my dad's 70th birthday, but that fell right at the kind of the first day of the pandemic. We still made it out here but then realized, okay, maybe we don't want to go back to Montreal right away. The birthday party was canceled, so we just kind of lay low and rented some cute little houses in rural areas nearby. Eventually decided we actually really like it here and we had been thinking about making the move to a smaller place for a little while. So we ended up buying a very cheap property which was the old United Church in Gravelburg. So that's been one of our projects the past few years.
Speaker 3:As for my art practice, it's pretty multidisciplinary. My background is in film and photography and I started towards the end of that focusing quite a bit on sound art as well, really loved that whole medium, realized that I wasn't a film person. I like to keep them separate. So I kind of do a lot of sound and I do a lot of photography and it's often linked to place and the places where I live and what it means to get to know those places, what it means to care for them.
Speaker 2:Awesome Thanks. Yeah, I had a chance to kind of go through some of the links you sent for your website and your sound work and definitely I think we share quite a few common interests in photography and sound and also really, really liked your um uh city scout badges oh yeah, that was a fun project so what has is?
Speaker 2:I think it's a pretty interesting interesting decision to move to, uh, a smaller, small, you know, rural Saskatchewan. I was wondering, maybe, if you could talk a little bit about kind of what that change, that transition's been like, coming from Montreal to kind of being in Saskatchewan and, yeah, just kind of what that experience has been like.
Speaker 3:I really love Montreal. Montreal's amazing. It's full of opportunities, it's full of yeah, basically anything you're looking for is amazing. It's full of opportunities, it's full of yeah, basically anything you're looking for is there. But we just realized that we weren't really taking advantage of it anymore. You know, there was a point where we were just kind of staying home and not really yeah, not really going to all the shows and all the art openings and etc.
Speaker 3:I definitely have a community there that I do miss. But what I realized moving to a smaller town is oh, this is kind of a built-in community that you're part of almost immediately just by being here, just because there's not a lot of people here, and that felt really nice. It was like living in a neighborhood where you know all of your neighbors and I realized I had never experienced that in that way Montreal. I had different little sub-communities when I worked in community radio. That was a community, but the city itself and my neighborhood itself, it never felt that way. So it feels in a way easier here to get involved, to get to know people, even if I don't know. I guess options are more limited. That feeling of community is really nice.
Speaker 2:I think that that's something that I've heard. You know. I've had a chance to talk to a few people who have either, you know, who are not from here, who have come here and made a home here, or who have left and come back, and I think that seems to be a common thread, even if you're maybe not necessarily in a smaller community, if you're in, you know, regina or Saskatoon, that there's still a. There just tends to be a sense of community that is maybe hard to get in other places, which I think is a good advantage for Saskatchewan and also for an arts community. So one of the things that kind of also has brought this conversation together is your involvement in, uh, the gravelberg artisan co-op is. Is that the correct? Yeah, um, and so I was yeah. Maybe can you tell me a little bit about kind of what the co-op's about yeah.
Speaker 3:So I do feel quite lucky that we have we have we have this community of artists who are members of the co-op. That's not something that every small community has. So basically, yeah, it just started as a handful of artists and artisans and crafters who wanted to share resources, who wanted to get together, encourage each other to share resources, who wanted to get together, encourage each other. Initially, the plan was to have some sort of storefront where everybody could sell their work. That sort of morphed into more of a. We do have. We have a small studio space that we where we host workshops, but so the focus is more on supporting artists, hosting workshops, hosting craft shows, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:How many people are involved with the co-op?
Speaker 3:Well, there are eight board members, Okay, but there's also a bunch of producing members. You can become a member and benefit from various things get discounts for craft fairs that we put on that sort of thing. I don't have the exact number for how many producing members and supporting members that we have, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. It sounds like a pretty great community and group to be a part of, though, and a good opportunity to make community connections for sure community connections, for sure, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:And I knew that these people existed when I moved here, and it was definitely one of the reasons that I thought oh, I think I can make this into a home, I think I can find a community and like-minded people and people I can talk to about art. So that's been really great.
Speaker 2:I guess I'm really interested in maybe having a bit of a discussion about your approach to sound art and kind of maybe how that journey has evolved for you. I think I am a bit personally interested, so maybe a slightly self-serving discussion, but I'm a printmaker, kind of by trade, with no access to a studio at the moment, and so the idea of thinking about sound art and maybe how that could be something that you know gets kind of introduced or included in my own practice sounds very appealing, and so I'm just, yeah, curious maybe to hear a little bit more from you about that and kind of anything. Maybe you know it can go on from there if there's anything else you want to talk about in regards to your practice. But I thought maybe that could be a bit of a jumping off point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I said, it's often linked to place. It's often linked to place, and sound art for me has often been a way to explore a space and so so it focuses quite a bit on field recordings, recordings that I do outside, when I go for walks or various explorations. That's, that's been a main focus. Um, various explorations that's been a main focus. I'm not very techie when it comes to my sound art because I kind of want to keep it simple. I want to keep it portable. I want to have just something I have in my pocket that I can pull out. So, you know, I found the best kind of basic equipment that would allow me to do that and still sound pretty good. But I'm not that person who walks around with a bunch of shotgun microphones and takes a long time to set up maybe eventually, but for now I like that I can walk around with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm working on something right now the very beginning stages that will be related to Southern Saskatchewan and its bodies of water and our relationship to them and why they're important to us and whether we're taking care of them.
Speaker 3:From what I've seen just on my walks to the Wood River near my house, from what I've seen just on my walks to the Wood River near my house. In certain ways, I feel like it's not being taken care of enough, although we live in a semi-arid area and we all know that it's very important to keep these waterways healthy. So what does that mean and what do we need to do? So this project, similarly to other things I've done, it sort of blurs the lines between audio, documentary and sound art. I'm hoping to combine interviews with people who can talk to me about their experience and how they care for the river, perhaps and, yeah, how they care for the river, perhaps and also lots of rich soundscapes, lots of water and ice sounds that I've started collecting, and find a way to put those together and create something immersive and something inspiring that shows people kind of the unique beauty of southern Saskatchewan and water, because there's a lot of characteristics of the bodies of water here that I hadn't encountered before, for example, the super saline lakes. That's quite unique.
Speaker 2:And just the characteristics of meandering prairie rivers that twist and turn forever because it's so flat. I'm really interested. Hey, I think I'm. When we get off the off the call, I'm probably going to Google the super saline lakes because I don't think I know much about that. Um and um, yeah, I think you know that's also something too that a lot of people maybe don't necessarily associate with Saskatchewan is bodies of water. But yeah, we do have a great number of lakes and bodies of water, so I think that'll be an interesting exploration.
Speaker 2:How have you found the kind of support as far as at a funding level? Have you been, you know, have you found, have you been able to access any, any grant programs as an, as an artist coming into Saskatchewan, or just you know? I guess that's something that I'm always always interested in. Um, because I do believe that you know kind of, compared to other places in the country, that you know we have a fairly robust funding system in Saskatchewan. You know kind of from our two arms, from the lotteries and then also from SaskArts. In my discussions with people from outside of Saskatchewan, I've kind of always been told like be grateful for your funding systems and you have a really great funding structure in Saskatchewan.
Speaker 3:So I was wondering maybe if you've had any experience with that at all and kind of how that's been. Yeah, I have. I have benefited from a couple of grants A small grant that allowed me to go to Montreal for an exhibition that was taking place a couple of summers ago I guess, and the equipment purchase grant as well. I also I did. I have lived in Saskatchewan before, but just for a year or two, and I got a small grant at that time too. I have found it easier in some ways, I think, compared to Montreal and Quebec, it's quite competitive there and maybe that's why I haven't been as lucky. I still work with a collaborator in Montreal and we're always applying for things and we never get them. So that's frustrating. But I had this notion that I would release it as a podcast, but as soon as you say podcast, that's not really something that they support, and I had a good conversation with somebody at Saskarts actually who explained why that is, it's just sort of seen as journalism okay, even though it's not necessarily.
Speaker 3:I think there's just sort of um in terms of maybe documentary, sound art type of field. There's certain things that haven't quite caught up to the reality. There are ways to make an audio documentary that that it's not really journalism or it is, but it's also something else. I think there could be more there. That's not specific to Saskatchewan, that's Canada Council too, that's everybody. It's just a medium that's evolving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely think about some of my favorite podcasts that I've listened to over the years, or series or different things, and, um, yeah, there's an interesting distinction and it's almost. It's almost kind of around the method of delivery rather than the uh me like then, the classification of what makes it art necessarily.
Speaker 3:Yeah, these things are interesting. Sometimes it's just in the way you word it too, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:So you're kind of aside from your art, then that might be a nice segue. Your kind of work is also in the audio field is also in the audio field.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I have worked in community radio before in my big city life. But there's a point where I was moving around a lot and I was looking for something that I could do remotely and I thought, oh, I really love sound editing. I wonder if that's something that I could do. It turns out that, yeah, it is something you can do and there's quite a bit of demand for it. There's always somebody starting a podcast that needs help making their audio sound good. So, yeah, I've been working as a sound editor, sound designer, mixer, et cetera, mostly for podcasts, for I don't know, six years, something like that, yeah, yeah, it's nice to be able to give you know, a good gig with a great amount of flexibility.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, it's been. Yeah, I really appreciate the flexibility for sure. Yeah, yeah, aside from, you know the freelance life of, oh, now I need to look for new contracts again. But yeah, I really appreciate the freedom. I appreciate working on just all different projects all the time, and it's definitely allowed me to perfect a lot of technical skills that are super helpful in the rest of my work too.
Speaker 2:So how did you get involved with community?
Speaker 3:radio, the rest of my work too. So how did you get involved with community radio? I don't know. I feel like this started when I was born, because my dad has worked for CBC Radio or Radio Canada just my whole life and just sort of part of I don't know my blood. But basically as soon as I graduated from school I started volunteering at CKUT, community Radio in Montreal, and then that's mostly where I learned editing, producing on-air engineering. Yeah, I just loved it and it's a really great community of kind of radical left-wing people and it's a teaching radio station too, so I was able to explore and learn all sorts of things in a super supportive and low pressure environment. Um, so I was there for quite a few years and and they also had a few sound art collectives too and we would produce some collective pieces, collages of sounds that we had all accumulated. That was quite fun, yeah, and and then eventually also eventually also got a job in another community radio station in Montreal after that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, it's been interesting to see the journey of the community radio station here in Regina. That's the one I'm definitely most familiar with. I know there's also a really vibrant community radio station in Saskatoon as well. I just don't know it quite as well because I'm not there. But yeah, I've been involved with them a few times here and there, mostly through screen printing. We've done a lot of shirts and stuff for their fundraisers and stuff. So I've always kind of managed to keep a connection to CJTR here kind of one way or another. And yeah, I always kind of enjoy tuning in and hearing what's going on. And it was a bit of a precarious time for them, I think, throughout the pandemic and over the course of the last little while. And I know that they had a pretty serious fundraising initiative and luckily I talked to a couple of the folks there they kind of blew it out of the water with their fundraising. So they're back in business and safe for the moment. So yeah, shout out CJTR.
Speaker 3:Yay, yeah. Yeah, I feel like the community radios. They're always in. They're always a little bit in a precarious situation and just struggling or just having to fight for it every year. Yeah, that's tough. We have a community radio station in Gravelbury. Actually it's mostly Francophone. Yeah, I haven't yet gotten involved, but perhaps someday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, One thing at a time. Yeah, I'm wondering, you know, what's been your kind of like I don't know favorite thing is the right term, but like what's been kind of like the best part about moving to a smaller place and what's been kind of like the most challenging thing as an artist that it is cheaper to live here, which means I have a little bit more space to work on personal projects that may not make me a ton of money.
Speaker 3:It also means that I can take the time that I need to say, go on my long walks to my prairie river and find inspiration there. And there's definitely something about this landscape also that I've always found quite inspiring. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's just the feeling of expansiveness of the big skies and the big prairie, just something that I can relate to. Somehow. It's been really nice to just live in it and live that. More challenging would be well, just not having as much access to certain things. It would be awesome if I could go to all of the exhibitions in Regina and Saskatoon, but the reality is that I don't in Regina and Saskatoon, but the reality is that I don't. Our trips to the city are always quick and errand-based, so it's not. Yeah, I don't often go, and along with that comes limited networking opportunities, limited community. Like I said, I am lucky to have my small group of artists that do live here, but I do, yeah, I do miss, I guess, the, the vibrancy and the opportunities that do exist in bigger cities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that I think that's something that kind of how the kind of conversation and kernel of the idea of maybe trying to figure out, like, what can we do with the idea of having a rural artist working group kind of evolved from for sure, and you know we'll put some links in the show notes to some of the the articles that have been written for that and things, um and and you know it's yeah very much still kind of in, uh, the beginning stages.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that Jessica and I have been talking about is it seems really important that the groups you know that say, if there's a rural artist working group, that it's localized kind of to a certain place, because the idea is maybe not necessarily to have to ask people to travel to a different place or a huge distance and then also to not have to, like, drive to the city, you know, because that kind of is the antithesis of what we're trying to make happen.
Speaker 2:And so with the SAA's involvement, you know we kind of just started in your neck of the woods, just because that's kind of where the idea and initiative kind of and enthusiasm for the idea started with. But we've been really thinking about and talking with our board and you know some of our stakeholders about. You know what's a realistic way to maybe grow this idea so that we could reach people in more areas of the province. And if we are to do that, you know how can we do it sustainably so that we can kind of maintain something moving forward. I don't know like, do you have any thoughts on? You know how it might be possible to support, you know, artists working in rural areas?
Speaker 3:Yeah, during that meeting that we had, a lot of things were brought up for sure, but some of it was about accessibility to opportunities and to events and whatnot. I did see something interesting that was organized by I think it was the Conseil Culturel Francescois. There was a Franco-Saskatchewan artist showing an exhibition. Was it Regina? You know, saint-pierre.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the last name.
Speaker 3:I think that's ringing a bell yeah, okay, yeah, well, in any case, they decided that they wanted the Franco-Saskatchewan community to see this, and so they actually.
Speaker 3:I think I think it happened they were organizing a shuttle to just bring a bunch of people to see the exhibition and bring them back, and that's definitely something I would have taken them up on if I had been available that day. Sadly I couldn't. But something like that, that sort of thing where just facilitating just getting there and coming back and also getting people together to see these things seemed quite helpful and quite fun as well. So I think for me that's usually the main challenge is just deciding okay, how can I make it, how can I go to Regina, how can I go to Saskatoon? And usually it's just I decide that it's not worth it and then I don't go for various reasons time, money, whatever. So that's the first thing that comes to mind really.
Speaker 3:Another thing is just that meeting, just getting together with a bunch of artists who don't live near each other, was really nice to just gather every once in a while and be like oh hey, we're all here, even if we don't see each other every day. Yeah, it's really nice to keep that connection. Yeah For sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say probably been a little bit more radio silent on kind of the next steps than we were imagining. But you know, jessica and I have been talking and planning and you know she will be reaching out to folks here, I think, quite shortly about you know what, what can we do next and, and you know what are, what are the next steps for, kind of for the you know following up on on our, on our first conversations. But, um, yeah, we've been talking. We've also been talking quite a bit with, uh, uh, zoe Schneider from the organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, it know she's recently joined well, recently, last fall I guess joined our board of directors and you know it seemed like kind of a natural conversation to be talking about rural artists and rural networks and connections with OSAC, just because they already have a lot of that infrastructure and community built into what they do for many, many years now. And so, yeah, that's been, I think, a real kind of fruitful part of the conversation about, you know, maybe bringing more people and resources into the conversation and also talking with CARFAC Saskatchewan about, you know, their rural mentorship program and kind of you know how can this is something that intersects with many different mediums and disciplines and just geographically. So maybe how can we, how can you know, as organizations, how can we work together to kind of come up with contributing to a larger conversation? So it's been interesting to start thinking about what this could look like.
Speaker 3:Interesting and there's also intangible things, like I was talking to somebody who just who had this notion that, oh well, all the really good artists, they live in the big cities, right in a world now where a bunch of people are working remotely, a lot of people are choosing, maybe, a different lifestyle and maybe and the city's not for everybody, and so why? Why can't there be amazing artists from here? And there are, yeah, but what is that and how can we change that perception?
Speaker 2:I guess yeah, yeah that's definitely a really important component of it. I think, yeah, I think that's even a bit of a question or an issue I was kind of faced with, I think myself, when I was thinking about because I'm born and raised in Saskatchewan, I grew up in Weyburn and, um, you know, just ended up deciding to come to do art school at the university of Regina and I think, as we kind of you know, my kind of group that I went through school with and, as we kind of ended, ended our studies and everything, we were a lot of folks we saw, definitely went off and moved and did other things and, you know, maybe went on to do master's programs and other in other areas. Um, and you know, it was a bit of a, a bit of a conscious decision, I think. Uh, on my part and also some of my, my friends and colleagues, you know that we said okay, you know, I think I think we're going to, I think we're going to stay um and and stay to kind of work on our studio and and, and you know, do a few things and, you know, hindsight's, 2020.
Speaker 2:And I don't think I'd change anything for the anything for the world, but I think there was, you know, even at that well, especially at that time, I think you know a question about oh, you're going to stay in Regina. Like, what are you going to do in Regina? So yeah, I get that for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, saskatchewan is weird that way. It's like people don't see its value or something. It's just not Well from anybody outside of Saskatchewan they definitely ask that question yeah, why? Why would you go there? Yeah, you just don't understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally have. You had many visitors.
Speaker 3:Gosh, not really. Well, there was the pandemic so nobody was visiting us. Let's see. No, we did have three friends, three friends from out east, from Montreal visit, which was quite exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah, we want everyone to come visit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, that's yeah. That's also part of the problem I've. You know, I had the amazing opportunity a couple weeks ago to go to the Canadian Arts Summit. I got into a business arts like emerging leaders program and part of this was that you got to go to the BAM Center, which I'd never been to, which was pretty amazing for this summit, and that was. We were having lots of interesting discussions, but one of them, too, was talking about how, in Saskatchewan, like our lights and travel are just. That's also a challenging part about kind of being in Saskatchewan and access, yeah, like our, you know, I think you know thinking about bringing in, you know visiting artists or that sort of thing. It's just, it's a whole nother. It's a whole nother level when you're looking at flying into just Regina and Saskatoon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely yeah.
Speaker 2:It's been nice to get the chance to talk and yeah, hope we'll. And yeah, we'll stay in touch. Yeah for sure. Thank you. Thanks, dominique.
Speaker 1:The next episode of Arts Everywhere is coming soon, so keep checking the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance website and their social media pages for more information and if you're listening to the podcast through your favorite podcasting app, don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss a single episode. The Arts Everywhere theme music is composed by Saskatchewan musician Patrick Moon Bird, dancing to lo-fi from his album entitled 2021. Check out the show notes for links to Patrick's music. The Saskatchewan Arts Alliance would like to thank our funders. The Saskatchewan Arts Alliance would like to thank our funders, sask Culture and Sask Arts, both of whom benefit from lottery ticket sales through Sask Lotteries. Proceeds from Sask Lotteries fund cultural organizations all across the province, and we wouldn't be able to do the work we do without your support. See you next time.
