On Behalf of These:

 

 

Sound Portal for Bell Bubbles

24 September to 7 November 2026 | Main Gallery

How can whales be bells and sounds be bubbles? Floating from the deep ocean up into the cathedral tower, On Behalf of These: Sound Portal for Bell Bubbles brings oceanic consciousness into terrestrial consciousness.  

The liquidity of sound traces threads of the air through whales and bells, sitting on the edges of meaning. Emerging, floating, it crosses audible, visual, material, spiritual, to inhabit the in-between ways of finding wholes and connections at the edges of where the sonic leads.  

In a process of integrating intuitive knowing, it shifts away from technologies of translation, inhabiting the poetic realm of associative and fluid meanings. In getting to know whales, bells and glass new ways of relating emerge, circular processes of collaborative listening and making, time stretching and folding, alchemies of change through sound to its materiality and back. Ideas form of sonic orientations, sonic materialities and sonic spiritualities.  

You are so heavy  

yet swing so wild  

and sound so.  

I am in your swing  

I am you bell.  

And now that I am sonic?  

Ask me to sound.  

On Behalf of These: Sound Portal for Bell Bubbles (2026) is a new series of works in glass and bronze, audio and video, weaving and prints, music composition and graphic notations, sound walks and workshops. 

Bringing together research into whales, underwater sound and local-bell-ringing traditions, the exhibition considers interspecies communication and poetic listening in times of environmental change. 

It includes an adapted version of How You Shimmer: Sound Portal for Whale Bubbles (2025), for glass, bronze, projected video and sound.  

The exhibition was adapted from artist Yolande Harris’s research during a SIAH fellowship at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, and an Arts Research Institute (ARI) Faculty Award from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2025. During this research, Yolande trained as an apprentice bell-ringer at Winchester Cathedral, whilst continuing her ongoing exploration of whales and underwater sound. 

The Sound Portals Project

Yolande’s ongoing Sound Portals project explores connections between distant environments, interspecies communication and alternative ways of knowing through sound and listening. Drawing inspiration from both whales and bell-ringing, the work considers how humans might develop deeper relationships with more-than-human worlds.

These ideas take material form through immersive installations, sound walks and collaborative practices that combine sound, light, glass, bronze and weaving. While engaging with questions of spirituality, ecology and environmental change, the work remains grounded in the physical and collective practice of listening.

Bell-ringing, with its combination of physical skill, memory, pattern and teamwork, provides a powerful model for thinking about connection, community and shared attention. Through these intertwined practices, Yolande explores how sound can reveal new perspectives on our place within interconnected ecosystems.

 

About the artist 

Yolande Harris is a composer, sound and video artist focusing on the transformative potential of sound and listening in times of environmental change.  

For more than a decade, Yolande has collaborated with scientists researching marine mammals, creating installations, sound walks and audiovisual works that encourage new ways of relating to the natural world. 

Yolande’s work has been shown at venues such as:  

  • Issue Project Room (New York) 
  • Netherlands Media Art Institute (Amsterdam) 
  • Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt) 
  • House of World Cultures (Berlin)  
  • UCLA/Getty PST Art  

Yolande is Lecturer in Art and Creative Technology at Winchester School of Art,  

Read more about Yolande on her website 

  • A tall brick bottle kiln rises above industrial buildings beneath a clear blue sky. The historic kiln is viewed from across a street with trees framing the scene.
  • Close-up of a hand-blown glass vessel being shaped on a blowpipe in a glassmaking studio. The transparent form is illuminated by the glow of a furnace in the background.
  • Colourful glass rods and glassblowing tools are arranged across a workshop workbench. Samples of red, yellow, blue, turquoise and white glass are displayed alongside equipment used for shaping glass.
  • White glass forms and test pieces are arranged on the floor inside a circular brick kiln. The kiln's curved walls and high dome create an industrial studio setting for glassmaking experiments.
  • Large church bell mounted within a timber bell frame inside a bell tower. The bell is illuminated by a light shining through the wooden structure.
  • Narrow stone spiral staircase winding through the interior of a bell tower. The worn steps curve tightly around a central column.
  • Bell-ringing ropes with red, white and blue striped sallies hang from timber beams in a ringing chamber. The ropes are suspended beneath a wooden ceiling crossed by metal supports.
  • Close-up of a bell-ringing methods book showing numbered ringing patterns marked with handwritten annotations. The open page is held inside a church interior.
  • Close-up of braided textile samples in pink, turquoise and cream threads laid across a white surface. The woven cords create delicate looping patterns and textures.
  • An open bell-ringing methods book lies on a wooden table alongside colourful braided cords woven through and around its pages. The braids echo the structured patterns printed in the book.
  • Abstract line drawing on transparent paper over musical staves, with black lines crossing and intersecting to create a graphic score-like composition.
  • Bell-ringing ropes hang in front of a stained-glass church window illuminated by bright sunlight. Green reflections from the stained glass are cast onto the stone arch and wall above.
  • Large bronze bells of varying sizes are arranged across the workshop floor of a bell foundry. Industrial machinery and casting equipment surround the bells inside the spacious factory.
  • Concept sketch combining a church bell tower, weaving patterns, whale-like forms and bubble shapes, connected by handwritten notes and flowing lines. The drawing maps relationships between sound, bells, whales and communication.
Sound Portal for Bell Bubbles
twg@soton.ac.uk
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