(Canadian, Hakka Chinese origin)
George Town, Malaysia 1967
Currently based in Vancouver BC, Unceded Territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations

Crowd Shyness: the sound of its making
2020
Hollowed cedar stump, drum head, hardware, resin
Commissioned by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, purchased with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation, 2021

On rainy days, set it outside to receive the rain. Play along if you wish, letting the rain take the lead.

At the invitation of the Belkin, Germaine Koh worked with Gallery staff during Summer 2020 to develop COVID-19 safety and visitor interaction protocols that recognized the importance of collective care and teamwork.

She installed a number of cedar tree stumps on site to indicate physical distancing stations, guided by the metaphor of crown shyness —the phenomenon by which trees grow with distinct spaces between themselves, to avoid spreading pests and damaging each other. In the context of COVID, the human equivalent is “crowd shyness”—keeping one’s distance as a form of conscious citizenship. Now, for Soundings, Koh has adapted one of the cedar stumps to give it voice, by hollowing it and fitting it with a drum head that will sound when it is left out in the rain, amplifying the voice of this material.

Germaine Koh is a Canadian artist based in Vancouver, unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Her work often adapts familiar situations, everyday actions and common spaces to encourage connections between people, technology and natural systems. Her ongoing projects include Home Made Home (http://homemadehome.ca), an initiative to build and advocate for alternative forms of housing, and League (http://league-league.org), a participatory project using play as a form of creative practice. She was the City of Vancouver’s first Engineering Artist in Residence in 2018-20, and is scheduled to be the Koerner Artist in Residence at the University of British Columbia in 2021. In Summer 2020 she worked with the Belkin staff to help shape COVID-19 reopening protocols.

On rainy days, set it outside to receive the rain.
Play along if you wish, letting the rain take the lead.