Canal Song
1 sound
I’ve always loved this stretch of open space along the Mystic – there’s something about the way the trees are lined up in a row that seems really intentional to me, and I feel a strong sense of time, nostalgia, and memory as I imagine who planted them and why. I learned that a branch of the Middlesex Canal (built between 1793 and 1803 and in operation until 1851) intersected the Mystic here at Boston Avenue. No remnants of the canal are visible – it’s just a layer of the past that I struggle to imagine. The more I thought about layers of time, the more I wondered who might have been here and what kind of journeys they had or wanted to have back when the canal existed. I started collecting and creating sounds to build layers of memory, imagining a journey through movement and song.
Wanda Strukus is an artist, producer, and curator working in movement, theater, storytelling, and sound.
