Overheard Underwater: Perri Lynch Howard

Perri Lynch Howard is a multi-media artist based in Washington state and interested in environments at the forefront of climate change. Self-described as a “sound artist interested in quiet,” Howard has travelled the world recording sounds in the environment both above ground and underwater investigating ideas around sound and quiet, working to chart and capture sites at the forefront of extreme environmental change. In her practice, Howard asks: What is natural quiet? How does sound effect marine life in the oceans? How do we truly listen to and experience our environment?

Howard creates immersive underwater soundscapes and visualizations from her field recordings that connect people to the life and shape of our oceans and coastal waterways. The multi-sensory nature of her work creates spaces for listening and experiencing water and marine life in a viscerally unique way. In her installation Overheard Underwater at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Howard will transform the Center Street Gallery into an underwater vessel with an immersive soundscape using bio-acoustic recordings from the William A. Watkins Collection of Marine Mammal Sound Recordings in the Museum’s collection.

Collected over a span of seven decades by oceanographer William A. Watkins with the assistance of William E. Schevill, and others, these recordings consist of more than 60 species of marine mammals in a wide range of geographic areas. She will pair those recordings with her own hydrophone recordings collected in Svalbard in the Arctic Circle and in the bustling New Bedford harbor. Contrasting the recordings in Svalbard with those in New Bedford, Howard will create a space to think about the impacts of anthropogenic marine noise on whales and what quiet means for the marine life living underwater.

Visually, Howard will pair her own drawings and paintings that merge sound visualizations and natural environments with spectrographs from the New Bedford Whaling Museum and other maritime heritage collections. The space will be a multi-sensory experience where visitors can spend time thinking and being underwater.

These experiences, in conjunction with her community-based sensory walks, form meaningful connections to the environment and lay the significant groundwork for understanding our place in the world. Overheard Underwater sits at the intersection of art and science and is a tremendous project to share with the South Coast community as we continue to create a space for understanding and thinking around ocean ecologies, marine mammal health, and climate change.

Perri Howard Biography:
Originally from Marblehead, Massachusetts, Howard received her BA from The Evergreen State College, BFA from the University of Washington, and MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work is represented by the Seattle Art Museum Gallery and Smith and Vallee Gallery. Her projects have received support from numerous residencies and granting agencies including Artist Trust, the Montello Foundation, Civita Institute, Willapa Bay AiR, PLAYA, Vashon Artist Residency, Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts, Jack Straw Artist Support Program, Centrum Foundation, the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Mamori Sound Project, among others. Howard’s art has a global reach through projects completed in Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Canada, and in South India as a Fulbright Scholar.