The Janet Langsam

Vault Project

The Janet Langsam Vault Project seeks to create an opportunity for artists to experiment, expand their practice, and advance social change. Through this initiative, artists will be provided funding to conceptualize and realize a site-responsive installation inside ArtsWestchester’s historic Mosler vault.

The vault space presents an opportunity to change or shape an environment, and to create a thoughtful work that engages with important topics in the community. Two artists will be selected each year and awarded a grant of $2,500. This project celebrates the extraordinary vision & leadership of Janet Langsam, ArtsWestchester’s CEO Emerita.

The First Vault Project: A Celebration of the Environment

Sound Forest / Memory Cave by Bruce Odland & Soli Pierce

Sound Forest/Memory Cave is an immersive installation by Bruce Odland and Soli Pierce that transforms the Vault at ArtsWestchester into a dream-like, cave-like environment. Soundscapes, images, light, sculpture, vibration, and tactile surfaces all combine to evoke deep memories, respect, wonder and connection with the natural world. Portals of wood and light combine with a canopy of leaf speakers, vibrations from a tree trunk subwoofer, and sculptural elements that speak in the language of wind and water. The piece is a celebration of deep listening that expands our circle of empathy for the real world and a meditation on our relationship to natural elements.

Odland and Pierce have been developing a series of Sound Forest installations for over two years, both outdoors and indoors. They work with a deep respect for nature and the built environment, for the stories that humans and their tools have left on the natural world, for found objects and found sounds, and for constructing new art out of the cast-aside artifacts the culture leaves behind.  In these they find new stories, old stories, and an ongoing trust that we will learn to live in balance and harmony with a natural world challenged by the excesses of both the Industrial and Information Age. 

Janet Langsam

” As vaults traditionally hold objects of high value, this space will be a permanent venue for artists to create, explore, & contribute to meaningful conversations.

It is meant to elevate the intrinsic value of the arts beyond the marketspace.”

Janet T. Langsam

Meet the Inaugural Artist Partners

Bruce Odland

Bruce Odland is a sonic thinker, composer, and sound artist internationally known for his sonic installations in public spaces that transform chaotic noise into harmony, creating humane zones for the human senses. He thinks with his ears.

Soli Pierce

Soli Pierce is a multidisciplinary artist, grounded in painting, form, design, and architecture. Her art is inspired by found, repurposed, and reimagined Nature.