Embodied Listening PROJECT
Sound walk piece and accompanying events, 2021-2023
Voice-over lines, singing & delivery of events: Annie Goliath
Recording of Environmental Sounds & Composer: Black Astronaut
Spoken voice-over lines of Anna Woods: Beth Organ
I started to develop the sound walk during the summer and autumn (2021 – 2022) by first exploring the landscape as I moved my body along the path of the Tree Walk in Alexandra Park: breathing in the atmosphere and observing the trees within the landscape. I then began collaborating with the composer Black Astronaut. Once I selected the specific seven trees for the sound walk, we applied a form of embodied listening to plants through recording the inner sounds of seven trees using specialist microphones. I researched the forgotten histories of each tree, excluded in colonial botany’s renaming and categorisation of these plants in Victorian times. Through the voice-over of Anna Woods, these forgotten histories were honoured and celebrated again in a decolonial approach. The voice-over was also developed through an engagement with critical plant studies in an attempt to convey the vast complexity, agency and intelligence of plants.
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During the two accompanying sound walk events (that worked in partnership with the local arts organisation Arts on Prescription),
I developed the interactive elements of the sound walk, to enable the participants to have a more reflective and embodied engagement with the more-than-human world. The reflective activities at the end of the event incorporated the co-creation of mixed media Tree of Life collages and reflective writing. This project received the CHASE Climate Justice Network Small Grants award: https://chaseclimatejustice.network/small-grants/
I developed the interactive elements of the sound walk, to enable the participants to have a more reflective and embodied engagement with the more-than-human world. The reflective activities at the end of the event incorporated the co-creation of mixed media Tree of Life collages and reflective writing. This project received the CHASE Climate Justice Network Small Grants award: https://chaseclimatejustice.network/small-grants/
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Immersion Series, 2022 - 2023
Mixed media on canvas, 42 x 29 cm x 4 Trees of Life