Sounds Afield

Sounds Afield is an Erasmus+ funded project exploring field recording and deep listening as tools for artistic creation, wellbeing and social awareness.

Bringing together Kiosk Radio, Refuge Worldwide, Radio Dopo, Biorhythm and Field Records, the project looks at how sound can shape the way we experience and engage with the world around us.

From the ethnographic work of Frances Densmore and Alan Lomax to the expansion of listening practices through Pierre Schaeffer, sound recording has long shaped how societies listen to themselves. More recently, artists such as Emeka Ogboh, KMRU and Vanessa Rossetto have taken field recording in new directions, engaging with migration, trauma, displacement and ecological change.

Sounds Afield builds on these practices and considers their potential for personal reflection, collective care and social insight. Field recording and deep listening become more than ways of documenting sound: they can bring us into closer contact with our surroundings and offer different ways of reflecting on lived experience.

Through workshops, study visits and collaborative research, the partners exchange practices and experiment with new ways of listening and recording. Particular attention is given to what we can learn by listening closely to everyday environments, including aspects of social life that can easily go unnoticed.

The knowledge developed throughout the project will form an open methodology and practical handbook, offering accessible tools for artists, educators, community radios and anyone interested in working with sound beyond the studio.