PAF004Davina Semo, Listener, 2020-2024

Bells have long marked time, summoned people together, and broadcast moments of celebration or warning. Davina Semo’s sculptures explore the powerful resonance of bells as civic signifiers while expanding their aesthetic and conceptual vocabulary. Semo’s  bells are powerful objects—sculptures that explore sound, light, and our relationship to place. 

For Powder Mountain, Davina Semo has created unique large-scale bells with distinct patinas and colorways, creating a melody from the natural rhythm of the mountain. Each bell has its own distinct voice, installed in dialogue with the terrain of Powder Mountain and perforated to frame views of the landscape beyond. 

Each bell has a different array of holes, and these apertures allow light to spill inside and sound to move outward, creating a dynamic exchange that serves as a metaphor for the flow between our internal lives and the external world.  Listener’s holes were conceived as a kind of musical instrument wherein the holes are arranged vertically, as though you could place your fingers across them like a recorder or a flute. The verticality of the holes also draws the eye up from the ground to the sky, accentuating the tall form of the bell. 

United by a shared palette of warm, earthen tones—pinks, reds, and speckled oranges—Semo’s bells were created to engage directly with Powder Mountain’s landscape. Achieved through layers of patina, the gradient of colors feels natural yet striking, alive against the whites of winter snow or the greens of summer trees.

The bells are installed across Powder Mountain in sites that have a strong resonance within the community, prized by those who know the mountain best for as accessing some of the best skiing and most breathtaking views on the mountain. Some are visible from afar, while others require curiosity and effort to find—the bells become an invitation to explore, to stray off the usual path, and to engage in a shared sense of accomplishment. 

The subtly different tones of each bell will create a musical composition animated by the natural rhythm of the mountain and the changing seasons. With each passing day, they will strike a familiar note in a tune that will never be played the same way twice. 

These bells ask us to pause: to listen, to look, and to take part in their dialogue with the mountain. Semo describes the act of ringing a bell as “profoundly embodied,” a gesture that marks a moment outside of time—an opportunity to reflect, set an intention, or simply let the sound carry across the landscape before dropping in or letting go.