During the summer of 2008, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presented a retrospective of work by sculptor and installation artist Louise Bourgeois. For nine high school students, this exhibition was the stimulus for a summer of creative writing, performance, and audio production. The resulting audio art pieces are fictional works, each inspired by a single Bourgeois sculpture or installation, and intended to function as an alternative audio guide for the work.

Participants began the project by exploring a number of Bourgeois’Äô pieces, engaging in group discussions and writing monologues, poems, or stream-of-consciousness thoughts based on each one. By the end of two weeks, everyone in the group had chosen one of their writings to transform into a final audio piece. Finished scripts emerged after multiple re-writes and peer conferencing sessions.

With the writing complete, students spent the rest of the program rehearsing, recording, and digitally editing their pieces. Some students also chose to add sound effects, which they recorded themselves, or downloaded from freesound.org, an online database of Creative Commons audio files.

This website presents the students’Äô final projects, available for listening online or downloading. Click on any of the students' names on the left to read about their process and listen to their work. Enjoy!