Old Medina High School Aud provides setting for vocal recording this Saturday

Photos courtesy of Medina Triennial: Tania Candiani, left, will lead the recording of “Two Waters” on Saturday in the auditorium of the old Medina High School on Catherine Street. Two Waters is a choral performance inspired by one of the Erie Canal’s most unusual engineering features: the aqueduct where the canal crosses directly above Oak Orchard Creek, a spot where two waterways flow past each other without ever meeting.

Press Release, Medina Triennial

MEDINA – This Saturday, in the long-abandoned auditorium of Medina High School, Mexican artist Tania Candiani will gather hundreds of local participants—many from across Western New York—for a four-hour, one-take collective vocal performance that will be filmed as part of a new installation for the Triennial.

The 25,000-square-foot building, closed as a public school since 1991, is reopening as the central exhibition site for the Medina Triennial, one of twelve locations across the village showcasing internationally recognized artist works this summer from June 6 to Sept. 7 along the Erie Canal.

Candiani, who represented Mexico at the 2015 Venice Biennale, is known for creating artworks that bring together technology, history, and community participation. Her projects often transform local stories, industrial heritage, and environmental data into immersive sound and video installations.

In Medina, she’s collaborating with composer Rogelio Sosa on Two Waters (2026), a choral performance inspired by one of the Erie Canal’s most unusual engineering features: the aqueduct where the canal crosses directly above Oak Orchard Creek—two waterways flowing past each other without ever meeting.

Participants—recruited through an open call—will perform simple vocal gestures such as breaths, hums, tones, and whispers that build into a collective soundscape inspired by the canal and the region’s history of labor and infrastructure. The filmed performance will later become one of the Triennial’s major installations.

The project reflects the Triennial’s broader focus on Western New York’s landscape, labor history, and waterways, and its theme, “All That Sustains Us,” which looks at the systems and communities that maintain and shape places like Medina.

To be part of the vocal collective, click here for more information. The deadline to register is March 26.