Early Morning Wren

Colin Reid and Rob Godman

Early Morning Wren formed part of ‘One Island – Many Visions’ - a curated exhibition of Portlands landscape legacy with symposium and programme of workshop /events developed over 18 months in partnership with 27 artists from the Royal Society of Sculptors and Portland Sculpture & Quarry Trust. The exhibition ran from 06 September to 31 October 2025 and included a two day Symposium  Sat 27 / Sun 28 September, focusing on environment and art.

The glass sculpture ‘Early Morning Wren’ combines textures cast from Tout Quarry rocks with an image derived from an audio recording at dawn in the quarry. A sound, a single visual representation of the location – the call of a wren – is captured as a sonogram and transferred to glass, reflecting the ancient permanence of the rocks and the fleeting nature of lives lived there. The accompanying soundscape, uses the same location and source – the bird call representing transience in a place that is rooted in geological time, reflecting changes to the Anthropocene. Frozen in time, the wren sonogram allows us to explore the sound ‘out of time’, with the soundscape distorting our perception of pace and rhythm as it unfolds. Making use of sounds that may have been present in the quarry throughout history, we hear echoes of the past entwining human and naturally occurring phenomena. The acoustic research was carried out in consultation with consultation by Rob Phillips (UH Music).

Colin and Rob are exploring new and enhanced ways of recording and visualising the natural habitat for future works. These include the hidden sound of our environment, such as bats and other creatures that communicate in frequency ranges outside human perception.

Early Morning Wren will be shown again at Gallery Pangolin, Chalford Gloucestershire, 13 June to 29 August 2026.

https://www.learningstone.org/oneislandmanyvisions

https://soundcloud.com/goddery