Artists:
Anna Gebhardt & Philip Rabalais
Site:
Wallace Farm
2773 290th Street, Orient, IA
website
Open daily, self-guided tours of the Wallace Farm are available any time of the day or evening. During the summer, staff are usually on site during the day Monday-Friday.
To listen, you will need:
- A smart phone
- Headphones or earbuds*
How to listen:
1. Download the ECHOES app on your phone.
2. Download Seeds of Memory on the ECHOES app
3. Put your headphones on
4. Enter, walk, and listen
About
A century ago, Henry A. Wallace set modern farming on a new course by founding Hi-Bred Corn Company. He spent the first four years of his life in this expansive place-the farm where his mother cross-bred pansies and his grandfather first established the Wallace family legacy of agricultural inquiry, innovation, and sustainability.
A century ago, Henry A. Wallace set modern farming on a new course by founding Hi-Bred Corn Company. He spent the first four years of his life in this expansive place-the farm where his mother cross-bred pansies and his grandfather first established the Wallace family legacy of agricultural inquiry, innovation, and sustainability.
Like our plant geneticist fellows, artists must embrace technology and experimentation in our efforts to discover “something really new” in aesthetic and philosophical realms. In the spirit of Henry A., we geo-mapped these recordings throughout Wallace Farm, using plants found at the site as our guides-seeds for each sonic exploration. Like an interconnected and ever-evolving ecosystem, each composition flows into the next as you walk.
This sound walk is an invitation to listen in the spirit of curiosity as you walk the land as Henry A., his mother, grandfather, and those who came before have done.
You keep on experimenting, you know, day after day, because you keep thinking that one day, maybe tomorrow, something really new may emerge from it.”
-Henry A. Wallace
Anna Gebhardt is a musician and sound artist living in Des Moines, Iowa. Her work blends elements of modern popular genres, folk, improvisational, and chamber music, as well as field recordings and noise. Integrating these with classical training as a pianist and singer, her music is a gateway to intangible aspects of the human experience, including identity, place, memory, and the power of nature.
Philip Rabalais is an electronic musician and filmmaker living in Iowa City, Iowa. Explorations in music and sound opened Rabalais up to a creative world that eventually bloomed out into filmmaking as well. His movies take a poetic approach to reality via open-ended narratives, formal experimentation, and significant collaboration amongst cast and crew. Rabalais received an MFA in Film and Video Production from the University of Iowa in 2020. He was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Faces of Independent Film” for 2024.
