Sarah Duffy

Lives and works in London, UK

Artist statement

My practice is interdisciplinary: spanning performance, sound, video and installation, with a focus on uncovering hidden narratives and making visible intangible elements of our world. This interest has led to an ongoing investigation into the human voice and its immaterial properties. I often attempt to embody my research; for example, in response to an extensive period of study into the spiritualist history of ventriloquism performed by female mystics, I spent 7 months training to become a ventriloquist singer, eventually staging unique site-specific performances in locations, such as a former interrogation chamber and a tunnel under The River Thames. Over the past few years, I’ve repeatedly returned to the subject of the disembodied voice - manipulating and altering my own live voice, as well as experimenting with recorded voices. One of my recent aims has been to create complex spatial illusions through innovative use of 3D sound in performance, combining my own physical body and voice with ambisonic spatial compositions to disorientate and misdirect the audience. In recent work, I’ve also been thinking about the shifting nature of the spaces we inhabit and the borders and maps we create to delineate our environment. I’ve been questioning how we orientate our own aging bodies in a world that keeps morphing and moving - politically, environmentally, spatially - and the effect this has on our sense of self. In what ways do we become reconfigured alongside our environment...

Artwork