SOUNDING THE INTERTIDAL THAMES

Sonic and Material Traces of an Unseen Ecology

Sounding the Intertidal Thames is a site-responsive exploration of the unseen and unheard ecology of the river.

Through sound and material experimentation, the project traces the presence of more-than-human life and the processes that continually transform the intertidal landscape. It invites us to reconsider how we perceive and relate to the estuary and the lives with which we share it.

The Soundscapes

These site-specific soundscape compositions draw on field recordings made across three stretches of the tidal Thames: the Kent Estuary, Central London and Richmond. Through layering and electroacoustic distortion, familiar environmental sounds take on strange, almost creature-like voices. Their imagined cries carry a sense of distress, suggesting the vulnerability of the lives inhabiting the estuary.

A book of listening scores

The book of 24 participatory listening scores conceived as small rituals of attention and care. Developed through encounters with the intertidal Thames, each score invites a gesture that brings the listener into relation with the more-than-human life of the estuary. Accompanied by experimental photographic works and site-specific soundscapes, the book explores listening as a ritual practice through which our relationship with a landscape in constant transformation can be experienced and reconsidered.

This 9 metre silk work brings together 3 stretches of the intertidal Thames, with 3 metres dedicated to each location. Through alternative photographic processes, tidal waters and sediments settle into the fabric, leaving traces of their presence and interactions. The work explores the estuary as a living, unstable environment, where the landscape participates in the making of its own image and continues to transform it over time.