sounds are pigments are places

In late 2023, Lynda Gammon, a long-time mentor, reviewed one of our research proposals that contemplated the climate crisis through sound art and material practices. Gammon, the head of flask publishing, responded with an offer to develop and publish an ee portal art book. Since that time ee portal has been working toward the realization of sounds are pigments are places, an interdisciplinary meditation on our collective ecological entanglements. With grants ee portal garnered from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts, together with the support of flask, the art book series is set to be published and disseminated in 2026. 

sounds are pigments are places is not only an ethic it is a magical statement. At its essence, it conveys that everything is interchangeable, that everything is fluid. Our animist view of the world shows us that all things, animate and inanimate, not only exist in equal ways, but each entity is dependent on one another for their very existence. We are attempting to go even deeper into this process to be able to express how sounds are actually also pigments, and how pigments are actually places, and so forth. 

This project embraces a deep engagement with the land through colour, sounds and words transferred to 1000 pages and extended to online and exhibition encounters. sounds are pigments are places describes the trajectory of our collaboration as ee portal, which has always been a project of joint authorship that critically questions the capitalist and colonial status quo, and engages in transdisciplinary actions. This cumulative research in sound art, pigments and ecomaterial processes will form a series of 20 art books of 50 pages each. Within these 1000 pages, we have experimented with letterpress printing processes, at the University of Victoria’s Farallon Book Arts Lab. Each book is its own art piece, uniquely made with handcrafted inks from the boreal forest.

book excerpts

photos of our 2025 residency at the farallon book arts lab at the university of victoria.