Sound walks

Sound walks can provide an immersive listening experience linked to a specific place, and typically involve a curated series of sounds that are encountered while walking a designated route. The sounds, together with associated text and images, are geotagged to link them with a specific locality. These are accessed via a phone app (Echoes), which can be freely downloaded. For further details about the platform and app, click on this link.

Sound walks created to date include:

Sound fishing 1, Wimborne (River Stour) – recordings of the underwater soundscape

Sound fishing 2, Wimborne (River Allen) – underwater soundscape and poetry inspired by the river

Heal Somerset. Field recordings were collected during May, 2024, at the site of this new rewilding project. These have since been incorporated in a sound walk on the site.

Poole Park, Pathways to the Past – an exploration of the “People’s Park”, by the people who use it. Featured as part of a festival celebrating the Park and its value to the local community, July 2021.

Listening to the sand dunes, Studland Nature Reserve –  featuring sounds of this nationally important dune ecosystem, including some of the species that live there. This sound walk was also broadcast via radio headphones during an event offered as part of the Planet Purbeck Festival, 2021.

Note that the sounds can only be accessed by visiting the site itself.

Artworks below created by Lynn Davy, Arthur Newton and Adrian Newton, for the Poole Park sound walk.