Between Sound and Making

Material as a Listening Field

The work approaches craft not simply as the production of an object, but as an ongoing exchange between the body, tools, and material.

Using contact microphones and environmental recording, Jez Fang captured vibrations that often remain beneath ordinary perception: wood being carved and struck, metal responding to force, glass shifting under heat, grass fibres being pulled and woven, and clay changing beneath the hands.

These sounds reveal making as a physical relationship shaped by repetition, concentration, resistance, and touch.

Five Makers, Five Materials

The installation was developed through encounters with five craftspeople and their distinct material practices:

Wei Rongming — Woodworking
The grain, density, and resonance of wood emerge through carving, cutting, striking, and the movement of tools across its surface.

Chen Yuanfang — Metalwork
Impact, friction, and vibration reveal metal as a material that carries force long after the initial gesture has ended.

Xu Jinlang — Glassmaking
Heat, breath, rotation, and transformation form a delicate soundscape around a material suspended between liquidity and solidity.

Wang Yuxiang — Grass Weaving
The quiet tension of pulling, folding, and weaving fibres brings attention to gestures that are subtle, repetitive, and closely connected to the hands.

Li Mingsong — Ceramics
The pressure of fingers, the rotation of clay, and the movement of water reveal the gradual negotiation between bodily intention and the material’s own tendency to change.

Rather than presenting these sounds as demonstrations of technique, the work listens to each craft as a distinct relationship between the maker and the material.

The Listening Installation

Five suspended headphones were arranged within a semi-enclosed space formed by translucent fabric, with a softly illuminated woven structure positioned at its centre.

The fabric created a threshold between the installation and the surrounding exhibition. Visitors remained partially aware of movement outside while entering a more intimate field of listening.

Each headphone presented one material practice. There was no fixed sequence: visitors could move freely between wood, metal, glass, grass, and clay, constructing their own path through the installation.

Listening to the Act of Making

Between Sound and Making shifts attention away from the completed object and towards the gestures, tensions, and moments of concentration embedded within its creation.

Here, sound is not an accompaniment to craft. It is a trace of contact—evidence of a continuously changing relationship between hands, tools, materials, and time.