Spout
Flamm Festival, Bodmin, 2026Materials: Wood-fired stoneware, electric-fired earthenware, locally salvaged timber, sound, film, LED lights, gravity-fed water irrigation system, water collected from St Guron's Well, Bodmin.
Spout is a sculptural sound installation by Alice Mahoney, commissioned by Flamm Festival and developed through a series of guided walks exploring Bodmin's watery past, present, and future. Bringing together sculpture, sound, light, and film, the project traces visible and hidden water systems through the town and surrounding landscape.
The walks traced an imagined water cycle through leats, springs, rivers, pools, lakes, cesspits, and subterranean sites in and around Bodmin, creating shared spaces for conversation and embodied experience. These journeys informed the development of the installation, drawing on environmental rhythms, local mythologies, and material experimentation.
Responding to Bodmin's visible and hidden water systems, ceramic sculptures were created to hold, channel, and move water. They function as both sculptural objects and devices for generating sound. The sculptures include spouts, vessels, and other forms inspired by objects and elements of water infrastructure encountered during the research.
Working closely with historian and sonic experimenter Jonny Davey, Mahoney explored how water moving through sculptural forms could generate rhythm and sound. Using recordings from these experiments and from the walks, she composed an original audio work, transforming samples into layered rhythms and melodies.
The installation includes a new film by Naomi Frears, developed in response to the walks and sculptural process. Together, these elements form an immersive work that invites audiences to reconnect with landscape, water, and one another in new and playful ways.
Photographed by Nick Cooney
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