A Sense of Place, 2012

A Sense of Place was devised for Howdenburn Primary
School, Jedburgh, in order to reflect with the children and their parents on the idea of exploring a sense of place through visual art, crafts, sound and text.

My initial contribution was to engage with the children in
running sound awareness and listening workshops, introducing basic techniques and methods of
environmental field recording and demonstrating the uses of audio software. I then recorded a series of interviews, carried out by the pupils themselves with
family members. These interviews were interleaved with a variety of field recordings from my sound archive in
order to create two radiophonic sound works. These were played throughout the two day final exhibition at Jedburgh Town Hall in March 2012.

​I particularly treasured the visual 'sound maps' produced by the children by listening to the sounds in their domestic environments. I still have the drawings and should publish them some day.

Community work such as has always been an important part of my research and practice. A Sense of Place developed previous collaborations with local schools, such as the Jedburgh Schools Soundscape Projects of 2005 and 2009, funded by Awards for All and The Ernest Cook Trust respectively.