Rails for Ragnhild

Sound installation, 4.21 min
Stereo piece by railway tracks
2014, 2017

Rails for Ragnhild from Helena Persson on Vimeo.

Six and a half years ago, I got the message that my grandmother was dying. When I arrived she was already gone. She lived most of her life close to the railway. Maybe this is why I at the end of her life, sometimes found her sitting in her room waiting for the train, as if her room was a train station. In the beech forest in Kalv, Sweden, I was given the opportunity to make this tribute to her. Rails for Ragnhild is a way for me to give her a more beautiful train station to wait at  – something I have often wished for her.

Helena Persson
June 10, 2014

Rails for Ragnhild is an installation and stereo composition that was part of a musical walk in the beech forest at the Kalv Festival, exhibited August 10, 2014. In a forest glade you found the railway tracks and sleepers, singing like a choir of tuned and pitched railway and level crossing recordings. Initiated by LjudKonst 7Härad the installation was also exhibited by the old railway tracks over the river in Ulricehamn Nov-Dec, 2017. The documentation film above is from the latter exhibition.

Listen to the stereo track Rails for Ragnhild

Technical specification:
– 2 speakers playing a stereo composition with sounds from rails and other sounds connected to railways.
– a minimum of 5 meters of rail
– sleepers
– the rail, sleepers and speakers are placed in a forest

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