In a small quiet room inside an independent bookshop in the coastal town of Folkestone, the artist installed an old red analogue phone. For a long weekend in Autumn 2023, this served as a pop-up wind phone for the community.
The first recorded wind phone was created by Itaru Sasaki in Japan in 2010 following the death of a close family member. Installed in a booth in his private garden, an old analogue phone – unconnected to any network – allowed him to connect with his lost loved one. By speaking aloud to him using the phone, he found it helped him deal with his grief. The following year, a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit the region close by and thousands of people flocked to use the wind phone, which he opened to the public. Since then many people around the world have installed wind phones to deal with their grief and to enable others to do so too.
Ruth Canning 