Hearing Stones and Singing Dresses by Ayumi Paul
Ayumi Paul is currently working in a special place: the Gropius Bau, where art is not normally created but rather exhibited. Through the basement of the building, she leads us up a long spiral staircase to the very top of her studio. As we enter the bright room, it is filled with violin music. Ayumi has been playing the violin since she was a child, but her concerts are different from those played in large halls in front of many people. The concert Ayumi introduces us to she played on a former tennis court and her audience was 50 bright, round stones. Ayumi explains to us that stones may not be able to hear music with ears, but they can feel it: The vibration of music sets the air vibrating and inscribes itself in all living things and objects in the environment. Stones are repositories of especially many different sounds, places and encounters, because most of them have been in the world for a very long time and have therefore already experienced a lot.
But not only stones, also other objects have their very own stories. Ayumi shows us a large and heavy dress that consists of countless different pieces of fabric. The fabrics - often pieces of clothing - were given to Ayumi by various women together with an associated story and the dress was sewn from them. For example, there is a pair of leggings that a woman bought together with her best friend. At some point, the two fell out so much that they no longer had contact. Nevertheless, the woman is still very fond of her former best friend. The leggings remind her of this and are therefore very important to her. Another piece that Ayumi hasn't sewn yet is from a lawyer who had to go to a meeting with many other lawyers. She was very nervous because she knew she would be the only woman, since not that many women became lawyers back then. To give herself courage, she bought an expensive and fancy dress that protected her at the meeting like a knight's armor.
The dress sewn together serves Ayumi as a score, that is, as a template for a piece of music that brings together many different voices. For each piece of fabric given, Ayumi has written a song, so the dress has a whole concerto inside it. When Ayumi plays the concerto, she wears the score on her own body, even though it is very heavy due to all the fabrics and stories.
When Ayumi shows us the fabrics, we see that there is a circle tattooed on her arm and ask her what it means. Ayumi tells us that she likes circles because they have no end. And that fits really well because the stories of the women she has collected will also stay alive forever through her art.
