Listener, Davina Semo

Davina Semo: Listener, Reflector, Mother

Bells have long marked time, summoned people together, and broadcast moments of celebration or warning. For artist Davina Semo, bells are powerful objects—sculptures that explore sound, light, and our relationship to place. 

This winter, three of Semo’s monumental bronze bells—Listener, Reflector, and Mother—will find their homes on Powder Mountain, integrated into the landscape and inviting visitors into acts of contemplation, discovery, and connection.

“Ringing a bell, and the sound and reverberation it produces, provides a primal connection to history,” Semo explains. “The act itself becomes a ceremonial experience, profoundly present and outside of scheduled time.”

An Encounter with Light, Sound, and Form

Semo’s bells are perforated with holes—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.

“The holes transform the bells into vessels of light and space,” Semo explains. “When viewed from below, they fill with sky, color, and sun, becoming eyes or apparitions. The light twinkles as you move around them—alive, fleeting, and mutable.”

Color as a Bridge to Place

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.

“It was important to me that the bells feel at home in the mountains,” Semo explains. “The warm reds allow them to stand out without overwhelming the space, while the interiors—patinated turquoise blue—offer a moment of surprise. When viewed through the holes or from below, this juxtaposition of color becomes a discovery.”

Journey, Discovery, and Intention

Listener, Reflector, and Mother will be 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 three note 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.

Listener is the first bell installed on Powder Mountain, sited near Grizzly Run off the Timberline Lift. Reflector and Mother will be installed later this winter. 

About Davina Semo

Davina Semo was born in 1981 in Washington DC, and lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2021, the artist’s work was exhibited at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 1 in the solo installation Reverberation commissioned by Public Art Fund. Other recent institutional projects include the solo exhibition Core Reflections at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, wherein the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Forrest Gander composed poetry and critical reflections to accompany her new sculpture. Semo has exhibited in prominent group exhibitions at San Francisco Arts Commission; Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; SOMArts, San Francisco; and Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles. Her work was recently in the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s “New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century,” a major survey exploring recent feminist practices in contemporary art.