Time-Travellers Art Installations

Visual art and sound installation exhibit at the 2024 Venice Biennale of Art took root when visual artist Parul Thacker and composer Frank Horvat shared in an expedition, north of the Arctic Circle, in the Svalbard Archipelago, in June 2023, aboard the tall ship, Antigua. The final product is an installation called, The Book of the Time-Travellers of the Worlds – a Fathomless Zero, which premiered at a historic Palazzo in Venice as part of a collateral event at the Biennale.

In the first exhibit of this installation, we are beckoned to appreciate and reflect upon the fragility of our planet’s melting polar regions while Venice’s Grand Canal hums directly adjacent to the exhibit, providing time and place to contemplate the interconnectedness of these two disparate landscapes and all life on Earth.

Water plays an important part in the Arctic experience. It is everywhere, especially in the summer and especially amidst our climate crisis. Drawing from audio recordings captured during their expedition, the soundtrack composed for this installation seamlessly weaves together the elemental sounds of the polar environment: the gentle lapping of water alongside the ice cap, the hypnotic feeling of whistling winds sweeping across open spaces, the cadence of sea birds, and the impact of calving glaciers. These regularly occurring sounds blend into the overarching layer of prevalent silence, all converging to create a sonic tapestry that mirrors the profound serenity and cathartic energy at the heart of the Arctic landscape, and Parul’s suspended translucent hand-sent double-sided stitched drawings.

This exhibition of fabrics featured more of Parul’s works along with that of the talented French artist, Karine N’guyen Van Tham.

EXHIBIT MOVED TO INDIA

After the exhibit in Venice, Frank’s sound installation and a new set of stitch drawings created by Parul traveled to Jodhpur, India and were exhibited in at traditional 17th century haveli.

Museo Novecento Sound InstallationS

After the success of visual artist Parul Thacker and composer Frank Horvat‘s installation exhibit at the 2024 Venice Biennale of Art, expanding the concept took root. The sound installation for chapter 2 of The Book of the Time-Travellers of the Worlds – a Fathomless Zero was created by Horvat on a 2-week creation residency of the Museo Novecento in Florence, Italy in February and March 2025. The exhibition ran from March 8 to June 8, 2025 and also included the first chapter, which was originally created for the Venice Biennale.

This new chapter continues to incorporate sounds recorded during their Arctic residency in 2023, and both feature spiritual texts by Sri Aurobindo, recited by Parul. However, the energy and pacing of Chapter 2 diverge significantly. While Chapter 1 is meditative, calm, and soothing, Chapter 2 adopts a more hypnotic, frenetic, and uneasy atmosphere. It evokes the raw, unrestrained quality of places like the Arctic, where our disconnection from nature becomes palpable. Chapter 2 becomes a more intense and introspective experience, with the sound of howling winds and the thunderous calving of ice, as if nature’s raw forces are booming through the space, uncontrollably asserting their presence.