Ann Hamilton (b. 1956) is an American visual artist, known for her large-scale multimedia installations, performance pieces and public projects. In 2012, she transformed the Museum of Modern Art in New York into a gargantuan field of swings, fabric and rope for the event of a thread. Other key works include indigo blue (1991), for which she presented a mound of 14,000 pounds of disassembled blue work uniforms; and privation and excesses (1989), which covered a 45 x 32-foot concrete floor with 750,000 honey-coated pennies. Hamilton is highly acclaimed: a MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and representative of the United States at the 1999 Venice Biennale. She has exhibited extensively around the world, with major commissions at the The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and The Guggenheim Museum.
Now, Hamilton transforms the immense top floor at Salts Mill in Bradford for her largest solo UK installation to date. The former textile mill first opened in 1853, and now forms the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Saltaire. Hamilton’s piece is part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture’s vast cultural programme – which includes the Turner Prize later this year. Titled We Will Sing, it is inspired by the history and regeneration of the space, by local contemporary wool and textile manufacturing industries, as well as the people and communities who call the district home. Aesthetica spoke to Hamilton about the multi-sensory, research-led project, which is her first major work in the UK for more than 30 years.
A: We Will Sing is your first major work in the UK for over 30 years. How did the project come about?
AH: Like so many things these days, it began with a conversation on Zoom. Curators Jen Hallam and June Hill, who were imagining Salts Mills’ contribution to the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture bid, wrote and asked if I would be interested in developing a project for the space. My background is in textiles, so I was intrigued, and we jumped on a call. And then, by chance, I was hiking with friends in the Lake District when the announcement was made – Bradford had won the bid! It seemed almost fated: we had a rare day off in our itinerary and were just a few hours’ train ride away. I came to Salts Mill for lunch, and I was hooked.
A: What was your initial reaction to Salts Mill when you first saw the space?
AH: I was both thrilled and daunted. The weight of Salts Mill’s large wood door, the sound of the metal latch and my first step across the threshold are distinct memories. I felt instantly held and welcomed by its beauty. I could feel my breath slow. My attention lingered on tables filled with beautiful art books and supplies. The sound of opera and the smell from large vases of white lilies enveloped me. I felt a generous invitation to give over to that “what-if” one feels when possibility sits at the door. I said to myself: “this is a place for the future”. The feeling of that day stayed with me as I researched and learned more about the history of Bradford, the mills and the vision at the heart of Salts Mill.
A: You’ve created other complex site-specific installations – such as indigo blue (1991) and whitecloth (1999) – where the architecture has a vast history. Where do you begin with a project like this?
AH: I begin by walking, listening and paying attention. I know the seeds for a project often rest in those initial impressions. It is a bit like lifting a wetted finger to the wind: it sets my direction and my questions, and from there I follow my nose and trust the process. Research comes later, and then it is a long journey of circling before finding and settling on the form the piece needs. My several return trips to Bradford were key; with each visit, the shape of We Will Sing pulled forward. I love the experience of working in response to a place. I never know what I might find, who I might meet – but I implicitly trust the process. The final idea that forms is woven with and by every conversation and crossing.
A: Let’s talk about sound. What will audiences hear as they move through the space, and how is the audio element presented? How did that component of the installation come to life?
AH: The three connected attic spaces in Salts Mill are volumetrically vast. My challenge was not to fill them – in emptiness they are already full – but to work with and, in some senses, to tune it. The journey of this piece begins in the harmonies of a solo vocalist and ends with a collaboratively created choral composition – and a view of the Bradford hills. In the former spinning room, once filled with the deafening sound of machinery, you hear Emily Eagen humming, whistling and singing a 13th century English folk song. I worked with Emily on another project, and her background in medieval music made her the perfect collaborator. We recorded Emily singing into the mill’s original horn speakers – the very horns that now project her voice out to the space. The three trumpet-shaped speakers, once stationary, now slowly turn. The sounds bounce off the walls: layering, echoing, reverberating and amplifying. On the canal side of the mill, you hear the 18-minute multi-voice collaborative performance, We Will Sing, recorded in workshops with local community groups, students and choirs. The composition is spatialised, playing across six record players. You might hear one section play in unison, whilst other phrases move between different sides of the room. The movement of the sound turns your attention. The project’s third aural element is a voice emanating from a small wood enclosure, an artifact of the former mill. This open windowed, low-ceilinged space has been repurposed as a booth for speaking out loud. A custodian or volunteer reads from the project’s newspaper, selected books or “letters to the future” written by members of the public.
A: What can visitors expect to see? Where did the imagery originate from, and how did you adapt it?
AH: The visual field is dominated by images of giant, portrait-like figurines suspended from the thick wood rafters. They are inspired by miniature hand painted ceramic figures traditionally baked into King’s Cakes, which are known as féves. The person who finds a féve in their slice is promised good fortune for the year. I found them during my first visit to the antique shop on the 2nd floor of Salts, and they stayed in my pocket long enough to become central to the project. The originals all have porcelain white bodies and painted clothes; the subtle inaccuracies of decorating something tiny is exaggerated in their new, more monstrous scale. Each one, floating in a blue-grey atmosphere, is printed on cotton paper and mounted with wheat paste to large sheets of felted wool created by H. Dawson, one of the companies based in the mill. Whilst each one has a unique expression, they do not represent a particular person. Instead, they are a collection of human-like characters – perhaps ourselves. Nearby, viewers will find benches and metal stillage structures that come from the mill or contemporary local industry. Draped over the top rung is a unique broadsheet, one of 22, printed by local newspaper The Telegraph & Argus. They are filled with images and essays related to elements in the project. There are texts on wool, letter writing, references to the history of the féve figures, a recipe for a king’s cake. There are images of textile sample books and reproductions of some of the project’s collected letters to the future. One might take them home, whilst others might rest on one of the benches and read silently – perhaps in conjunction with the reading coming from the booth.
A: The huge blue cloth, draped across the space, is incredibly striking. What’s the story behind it?
AH: Wool – raw and woven – is key to the project and the district. Towards the end of the former spinning room, stretching the width of the space, is a large, blue wool and mohair curtain composed of individual widths of woven yardage. The front-facing sections drape and split around the joints in the roof’s overhead structure and then extend long fingers into the space in irregular lengths – tethered with wool rope and weighted by rounded stones on the floor. Although this beautiful cloth from William Halstead’s is finely finished with contemporary equipment, the stones nod to the history of warp weighted looms that used stones to hold threads in tension. The back side pools slightly on the floor, forming a more conventional looking curtain. Openings between the selvedge edges read: We Will Sing, Salts Mill, Bradford 2025.
A: What are some of the most compelling stories you uncovered about Salts Mill during your research?
AH: During my return visits to Bradford, I began to appreciate the ways in which the vocabulary of wool and sheep are in its DNA. Most inspiring was learning about The Woolkeepers and their work to replace materials in our daily lives with sustainable ones – healthy soil, healthy animals and healthy people. A win win for the future! Other stories emerged from artist Hannah Lamb and her textile students at Bradford College, who helped sew felt and wheat paste all the féve images. Many of the students are working professionally or returning to school after full careers in other fields. I loved our conversations and the colloquialisms that emerged. New to me is the expression “he has cloth ears.” It’s a euphemism for hearing impairment – the consequence of a life working around the racket of the machines in the mills. In my metaphor-making mind, the expression links touch and sound, which are the two senses core to my work.
A: Community engagement feels central to the work. How have audiences responded so far?
AH: I was met with openness, trust and generosity. Whilst I am not there to experience We Will Sing’s ongoing daily life, I was present for a week after it opened – reading from the booth, talking with people, learning what the project had become. One comment has stayed with me: “I want to go home and bring my friends … I don’t know how to describe what this is, they just need to come and experience it.”
We Will Sing is at Salts Mill until 2 November, as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
We Will Sing by Ann Hamilton at Salts Mill for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture © David Lindsay
