Of This Parish: Invisible Cities, Viseu · 20:07:14

Of This Parish is showing at the Listening Room, Viseu as part of Invisible Places: Sounding Cities programme, which explores Sound, Urbanism and Sense of Place.

The Invisible Cities Symposium runs from 11 – 20 July 2014 and explores the relationship between acoustic design in the public realm and the wider influence sound has on our relationship to our urban environments. Running alongside the Invisible Cities symposium is the Sounding Cities agenda. Through workshops, performances and sound installations they will transform Viseu into a ‘sounding city’.

Of This Parish a film by David Prior will be shown in the Listening Room, Rua do Comércio 112, Viseu, Portugal on 20 July.

Of This Parish follows St. Anthony on a journey from a church tower to the threshold at which its bells can be heard. The film is both a sonic portrait of the Parish of Sul and a meditation on the changing role of bells in a rural community.

It is said that Anthony’s blessed bells had the power to work miracles, to cleanse the air of demons and evil spirits, protecting animals and children from weather and fire. Of This Parish follows St. Anthony as he travels from a church tower out to the threshold at which its bells can be heard. The film is both a sonic portrait of Sul – the Parish in the Gralheira mountains of Portugal where it is set – and a meditation on the changing role of bells in a rural community. The film begins with the idea of a Parish as territory defined by sound, a community whose borders are drawn by the earshot of a bell. As we travel from the epicenter of the community to its outer limits, we encounter bells used as a call to prayer, bells as time-keepers and alarms and also bells as pre-Christian protectors, casting the talismans inscribed in their metal across the phonosphere, purifying the air. Of This Parish was filmed on location in the parish of Sul and features the voice of Luis Costa who was born in the region and is now one of the founders of the Binaural/Nodar the art organisation that co-produced the film with liminal. Liminal is a UK studio, which explores the relationship between, sound, space and listening. Of This Parish was made possible with support from the Arts Council England.