MUSIC FOR THE BIG FILL AT ALUM CREEK (2012)
22'
hand-cranked turntable and computer
self-released
In 1974, the city of Delaware, Ohio erected a dam to turn nearby Alum Creek into a reservoir, gradually submerging acres of farmland, homes, cemeteries, etc. Having been born nearly a decade and a half after this event, I was mesmerized when I found a collection of photos taken by my great-grandpa Henry documenting the area before the “big fill.” It brought up a lot of ideas to me about our own ability to erase the past. It seems that sometimes we can make things disappear with almost frightening ease - most of the time, however, we are left with a kind of residue (physical, psychological, etc.) that is almost impossible to erase completely. While I know that the “big fill” left a large portion of Alum Creek’s geographical and cultural history submerged, I can still see evidence of these things in the landscape today - the ghost-forms of an older time. These things can be covered, but not erased.