the ballad of 邹佳韵
(the ballad of lucy zou),
a 4-channel acapella sound installation using eight vocal tracks that circle and move around the room.programmed with TouchDesigner, the ballad of lucy zou reimagines a 17th century Irish folk song (the Unfortunate Lad) with new lyrics
to explore themes of creative ownership, cultural inheritance, and authorship.
“To whom do we cling to when all is forgotten?
Who do we cling to when nothing remains?
Too bad we're destroying all that we've taken.
What can we take when we go to our grave?
We paint with old shadows, and claim them as ours
We carve new initials in wood worn with age.
But are we just echoes of these borrowed powers?
Is all that we make just dust on a stage?
My parents crossed waters, left mountains behind them.
They brought empty hands, and a heart full of pride.
They gave me their language, the weight of old wisdom,
And I carry it now, though it burdens my stride.
Oh, we say we’re creators of each recycled notion,
Sell tales once forgotten and call it our own.
Yet with each new layer, a murmur, a motion
Reminds us we’re writing on paper long torn.
What happens to towers built higher and higher,
When roots are forgotten and stones start to break?
Are we all just cinders burned out by our own fire?
Or will we grow humble for memory’s sake?
So I walk as an echo, a lone child drifting
Between borrowed lands and the home I create.
With eyes that see backward and forward in yearning,
What I’ll leave behind, only time will dictate”
- lucy zou