Natsumi Sakamoto: To Make (Our) Work Song

To Make (Our) Work Song is a film installation that explores the intimate relationship between manual labour and song, and the possibility of creating oral traditions today. Inspired by the Scottish Gaelic ‘Waulking Song’, the project collaboratively creates a new ‘work song’. It examines the traditional role of women in labour and explores ways to resist the devaluation of reproductive labour. Through the act of singing together, the project aims to explore the diversity of narratives and the challenges of ‘solidarity’ in intersectional feminism.

'Waulking' refers to the process of making woollen textiles by hand, a labour once carried out by women and lost to mechanisation in the Scottish Highlands. The waulking song was sung to lighten this hard work, and the music is still passed on today. The project began with research and field recording of the waulking songs on the Isle of Skye and developed into a sound, score, song and film production in collaboration with musician/artist Sarah McWhinney. It will culminate in a performance that questions the possibility of ‘solidarity’ in the community, centred on Sakamoto's everyday perspective of living as an immigrant in Glasgow.

Unravelling the vanishing tradition of waulking songs in the contemporary context will explore the various possibilities for the transmission of oral traditions, as well as songs as a form of resistance to patriarchal capitalist society.

Supported by Creative Scotland, Toshiaki Ogasawara Memorial Foundation, CCA Glasgow

MILK Glasgow

The performance scenes in this film feature participants from the Song Making Workshop, organised by Sakamoto and held at MILK in Glasgow in May 2023.

MILK is a social enterprise based in the Southside of Glasgow that supports women from migrant backgrounds, including refugees and asylum seekers. The workshop and performance participants in this film come from diverse backgrounds, not limited to these groups.

Opening

Join us for an opening on Friday 9 August, with a soft opening from 3pm followed by a larger gathering 6pm - 9pm. Then open 11am-6pm Tue-Sat.

Artist Bio

Natsumi Sakamoto is an artist based in Glasgow and Japan who creates multi-media installations that include film, drawing and animation. Her work explores notions of memory, gender and care, often with collaborative approach. It employs oral tradition to examine memories of hidden history through a feminist lens.

Sakamoto explores the politics of care and gender roles embedded in the intangible heritage of superstitions, songs and everyday ritual passed down through intergenerational memory. Her work aims to make visible the multiplicity of storytelling by voicing individual experiences through cross-cultural dialogue. In recent years, her work has revolved around historical investigations of women's solidarity that existed on the ‘periphery’ of feminism. Her recent exhibitions/projects include; Dismantling Motherhood, ACY Artist Fellowship, (2023), When Bodies Whisper, Timespan (2023) Knitting the Intangible Voices, 16 Nicholson Street (2021). She is a member of Back and Forth Collective.

Sarah McWhinney is an artist and musician based in Glasgow. Her practice explores the interplay of landscape, muscle memory and improvisation. She worked collaboratively on the research for this project, designed the sound and led community singing workshops to craft a new song, inspired by vocables from an array of mother tongues. Other recent work includes a collaboration with Fergus Hall, Into the Long Green Jaws, which delves into our relationship with the ocean using archival recordings, light projection, puppetry and folklore.