Silence

I decided to experiment with silence for this project because I've never had the opportunity to incorporate the absence of sound in any of my projects. I decided to record sounds of a normal day in my life once again. As for the numbers of that we had to use for these projects, I chose to work with the numbers 20, 52.5, 153.7, 36.6, 51.2, 93.2, 30.7, and 3. Those are statistical numbers I calculated from information I have gathered from the World Health Organization. Here are what those numbers correspond to.

-1 child under 5 years old will die every 20 seconds due to illnesses and conditions that could have been prevented if they were supplied with proper medicine and treatment. (East Mediterranean Region)

-1 woman will die for every 52.5 seconds due to pregnancy related problems if birth conditions are not improved.

-1 woman dies for every 153.7 seconds due to unsafe abortions.

-1 child under five years old dies every 36.6 seconds due to diarrhoeal diseases. (Estimates for 1996 India)

-1 child under five years old dies every 51.2 seconds due to acute respiratory infections. (Estimates for 1996 India)

-1 child under five years old dies every 93.2 seconds due to measles. (Estimates for 1996 India)

-1 child under 5 years old dies every 30.7 seconds of Malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.

-1 child dies every 3 seconds due to lack of proper treatments and nourishments in low-income countries like sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

During my sound piece, I will play 1 second of silence for everytime those numbers occur in seconds. The silence will be a way of mourning for those who have perished in this world due to the lack of aid and support. I hope that these statistics will one day change for the better.

"Silence"



Sources:

1 http://www.who.int/mdg/goals/goal4/en/ Child mortality calculated from 1990 to 2015.

2 http://www.searo.who.int/EN/Section1243/Section1310/Section1343/Section1344/Section1352_5262.htm
Mothers mortality due to birth related situations.

3 http://www.searo.who.int/en/Section1257/Section2263/Section2301_12190.htm
Children under 5 in India who die from Diarrhoeal diseases, acute respiratory infections and measles.

4 http://www.emro.who.int/whd2005/PDF/Brochure-English.pdf Birth related issues regarding mother and children.

5 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs272/en/ Children in unhealthy environments.