Topo Topos

Topo Topos is a microgeographic record of the artist’s first encounter with Tulsa using sound and found objects. Created over a weekend, Topo Topos is a material and temporal engagement with the city of Tulsa, where the artist builds a portrait of an unfamiliar place by moving through the city with people who live there, collecting sounds and cast off items.

This habit of collecting as a part of knowing or remembering a place has been a habit of the artist since childhood – a way of using objects to connect to place and time. Places are complex – they are simultaneously what they are, what they were, and how they’re used, and those narratives are often in conflict. An extension of a series about learning about place through walks, Topo Topos maps the artist’s encounter by considering the many ways that we navigate spaces, and the stories and histories that we can and can’t access about them. Images dominate the way that we know places – maps, landmarks, road signs. This project creates other ways to know place exploring how walking, collecting and listening can create a different kind of record of the land.