the Floodplain
A multichannel sound-and-video installation that explores the history of flooding in Iowa City. First exhibited at Public Space One, in a joint show with Elizabeth Boyne.
The Floodplain is a multichannel sound-and-video installation that explores the history of flooding in Iowa City from 1851–2008. By layering voices, field recordings, found sound, and music composed for the piece, Dumas transforms diaries, newspaper accounts, and weather reports into an audio collage that recollects a disjointed oral history of flood. This soundscape broadcasts throughout the room at random intervals through multiple speakers to accompany an adjoining video installation. Footage of the Iowa River is projected and fragmented through a mirror etched with a map of Iowa City. The sounds, stories and images create an abstract, fractured documentary that evokes the ghosts of flood – a surreal monument to the city’s relationship with its river.