How are audio professionals, musicians and artists working in ‘low arts engagement’ areas of the North East to create community art?
Audio artists in the North East show how they’ve used sound art, foley, oral history and podcasting methods to engage with communities around shopping centres, town centres,
Case studies of audio and community building:
● Grace Stubbings: Ballad of the Crocodile and Underpass - a ‘radio ballad’ project conducted around a supermarket in Washington
● Nell Catchpole: Sonic Arts Week - A weekend of sound art and installations that engages shopping centre and town centre audiences in Middlesbrough
● David De La Haye: Undersounding - An audio project and multidisciplinary collaboration in a community garden. Undersounding brings science, music, story, art, and sound technology together, to cultivate a playground of creative exploration.
● David Littlefair: The Loathesome Worm - A travelling foley project engaging NEET teenagers in creating soundwalks that respond to heritage.
Hosted by David Littlefair
GRACE STUBBINGS: Grace Stubbings is a musician, sound artist, audio producer, composer, and facilitator from Hartlepool. She co-produced The Ballad of the Crocodile and the Underpass, a ballad-style podcast created with the Washington community that combines oral history, original music, and sound.
https://www.wemakesoundne.co.uk/
NELL CATCHPOLE: Nell is an ecological sound artist, composer, educator, and researcher. Her practice explores different states of being and inter-relationship in the environment. Recent work includes ‘Teesmouth’ for BBC Radio 3’s ‘Sounding Change’; durational pieces, ‘Sound Field: Distanced, Together’ and ‘Yew Trees’ at Cheeseburn Sculpture Garden in Northumberland; and ‘Sonic Allotments’ for the Sonic Arts Week festival in NE England. Other environmental pieces include ‘Movements in Soil’ at Iklectik, London and ‘Sonic Stories from East Suffolk’. Her next commission is ‘Untold Stories’ for East Durham Creates. She is co-director of Sonic Arts Week, 2023.
As a composer, Nell has made work with artists such as choreographer Hofesh Shechter (Barbican, Royal Opera House, Sadlers Wells), theatre director Lucy Bailey (international) and poet Kae Tempest (London BAC, Edinburgh Fringe).
https://www.sonicartsweek.com/
DAVID DE LA HAYE: David de la Haye is an internationally recognised ecological sound artist, composer, bassist, and music technician. He uses hydrophones to share the experience of listening underwater and raise the cultural value of aquatic environments, in particular ponds.
https://daviddelahaye.co.uk/
https://www.undersounding.com/
DAVID LITTLEFAIR: Is a musician and community artist from Sunderland. He runs the music and arts festival Marrapalooza (http://www.marrapalooza.co.uk ) and has created art, music and audio projects for Arts Council England, Sound and Music, Historic England and National Heritage Lottery. His work is informed by several years’ frontline work in disability support, and has been delivered alongside young people that are NEET, disabled, neurodivergent people and people that are homeless.
https://davidlittlefairarts.co.uk/
FESTIVAL PASS HOLDERS ONLY