In partnership with the Armenian collective AHA, Lola Soulier presented an art exhibition titled “Conversations with the Reed” at the Komitas Museum-Institute in Yerevan, from April 5 to July 5, 2024. This project is the result of a year of research conducted in Armenia and France by Lola Soulier, a PhD candidate in musicology at Sorbonne University, currently in research residency at Iméra.
Supported by the French Ministry of Culture’s Directorate-General for Artistic Creation as part of the “Research in Music: Collaborations between Young Researchers and Artists” project, Lola Soulier’s work focuses on the history of double reed making. It explores the traditional harvesting of musical reeds, the artisanal crafting of reeds using old tools and techniques, as well as the current methods of duduk reed masters (Armenian oboe).
The exhibition highlights the deep connections between humans, reeds, and their environments, from the Arax River to the Mediterranean basin. It creates a dialogue between double reeds used in traditional Armenian wind instruments and those used in French Baroque music, particularly the duduk, zurna, and oboe. The exhibition also addresses contemporary challenges faced by reed makers and musicians in Armenia and France. Designed as a living platform, it fosters encounters between historical sources, contemporary practices, artists, craftsmen, and researchers.
This exhibition was created in close collaboration with the Armenian collective AHA, which organizes research, exhibitions, publications, and supports the creation of artistic and craft works.
Lola Soulier’s interest in reeds will be featured in a publication in November in the book “The Great Migration of Plants and Humans.” The release of this book will coincide with the opening of the exhibition “Migrations: A Human Odyssey,” scheduled from November 27, 2024, to June 8, 2025, at the Natural History Museum in Paris.
For more information on this exhibition, please click here.
