Cherry Rahn Sculptor and Painter



Sea of Souls, 1990-1993
Installation: "Sea of Souls"

presented by
Appleseed Collection 1993

Storefront location, Geneva NY

"Sea of Souls" consists of 60 Hydrocal sculptures mounted on the wall, "remarks on
cards", i.e., fragments of dialogue mounted on stick stands, sculpture molds set in a strip
of sand, and was accompanied by computer generated music by composer John Rahn.

To see someone and make them be seen is an affirmation of their existence. To see and
make seen a population of individuals is to affirm our existence as a community. Each
"face fragment" is based on a person living in the small, upstate city of Geneva, New
York between 1990 and 1993. I wished to represent everyone, even with only 60
portraits.

The "remarks on cards" were gathered with a recorder from many locations in the
community, extracted and mixed. A few examples:

almost musical . . . it changes but it doesn't change

great contrast. big potential. more effort.

of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the

you've got black on the back of your knee

what happened to Geneva? what ha-? it looks so - ugh! so dead, so

I wouldn't get quite that big

I simply do not know

I'm going to the carnival and I'm going to win a chunky doll

If you answer it theoretically then you have to somehow compensate for its
physical existence

For the opening, some viewers had their faces pinted white to look like the "face
fragment" sculptures.

John Rahn composed the music specifically for the installation.



All material copyright Cherry Rahn.