Taking water as her focal point, artist Sonja Strange has taken over the old water tower to create the site-specific artwork Wake-up (song), which comprises a sound work set in the water tower, a video work in the museum, and a number of sculptural objects. The title Wake-up (song) is a reference to NASA’s use of socalled ‘wake-up songs’ on their missions. Astronauts often find their circadian rhythm greatly disruptedwhile in space, and so they are woken up by the earthbound control centre with a song. However, Strange’s sound work in the water tower is not a song, but rather the sound of variations in sea level as measured by SWARM satellites, which are used to analyse sea levelchanges. In this way, the work becomes Earth’s wakeup song to us.4 From the ceiling in the water tower, four glassy objects hang down, reminiscent of congealed water in almost alien-like formations.

These glass-like objects and the accompanying sound also appear in fictionalised versions in the video work shown at the museum, where we follow a female figure with gills that looks like something out of a sci-fi film. The filmed sequences were shot in Åmosen in Sorø,
the area in Denmark where the very first people settled – and also one of the first places which people had to leave when the water rose due to climate change. With this, the work draws obvious parallels to the present, specifically the massive climate problems humanity
faces today, including the many challenges associated with rising water levels.

Mathilde Helnæs - Exhibition Curator Sorø Art Museum