Profound Riches
25 April - 31 October 2025
photo: Sussie Ahlburg
Profound Riches, a sound-based sculpture by artist Jonathan Wright now adorns the roof of independent music venue, The Forum in Tunbridge Wells. Through microphones, lights and digital radio transmissions the artist emphasises the building’s established role as a sound space but questions the way in which we hear and how we consider a building like The Forum. The sculpture illuminates the Tunbridge Wells skyline in response to its sound-scape.
Voted Britain’s Best Small Venue by NME in 2012, The Forum is 20 years old this year and the artwork has been commissioned in partnership with Hoodwink to examine the significance of the venue, its contribution to music and its locality.
Wright immersed his practice with that of the Forum for six months in 2012, working closely with staff and musicians at the venue and exploring the fabric of the building itself. The resulting work captures the emotive and charged atmosphere of the music venue, both during and post gigs; the climactic sense of exhilaration and the sustained sense of a shared beatific wealth when the doors close. Wright’s work extends this sense outside of the walls of the Forum using microphones placed on the Common land that wraps the building, picking up the natural sounds of the grass and wood lands and feeding this into the man-made sounds of the Forum.
Wright’s large scale work was launched on Thursday 25th April 2013 with a gig at The Forum headlined by Mallory Knox, a band recently signed to Sony and with performances at Reading and Leeds festivals in 2013.
Amongst all the difficulties of running a venue, sometimes there are these great moments when a night comes together. Typically they are accompanied by great music and fueled by the energy of a euphoric audience. It’s a feeling of a love at what your hearing, a kind-of self-righteousness, and the satisfaction of a job well done – experienced simultaneously.
These moments are profound in the depth of feeling; rich in that you end up existing on them. They sustain you through the hard times – the unreasonable riders, artistic temperaments, blocked toilets and thankless tasks.
These are moments of perfection. Profound riches that keep us doing what we do. (The Forum Team)
Profound Riches is on display both inside and outside The Forum from March – October 2013.
Listen in to Jonathan’s work. photo: Sussie Ahlburg