Angela YT Chan 
For common /play\ grounds led by yasamin and sass, I delivered a soundscape making and listening workshop (adapted and inspired by our forestscapes project). Participants speculatively engaged with changing political and natural climates.
” <soft but upbeat instrumental> fades in, 10 seconds
<a voice reading from a sci-fi graphic novel jumps in, mid sentence, an argument between two characters about their failed weather radio due to solar flare… they didn’t harvest the crops in time for the storm>
both overlap, 15 seconds
<voice> fades out
<birdsong, a pheasant’s call your grandma sent you as a voice note from her field…she lives across the border you can’t cross> 5 seconds
<instrumental and birdsong both> fades out
<a loud splash of your hand in your favourite stream in the city park>
silence”
Imagine it is many years later and you’re tuning into a muddled aural exposure, with daily sounds of experiences left behind as climate change transforms your neighbourhood. Overlapping audio recordings of people and creatures, media communications and natural to urban surroundings are layered into sound time capsules from autumn 2024: collages of your favourite sunny day out; conversations with friends about the state of things; the approving yelp after eating a delicious meal. Perhaps in later times, the sun doesn’t shine in the same way anymore; society formed a different shape, and those ingredients became extinct. Listening together to these experience-woven soundscapes, we explore what settings, senses and processes of everyday life are at stake.
Participants will be invited to submit up to two sound files of things they don’t want to forget in a changing landscape. Further instructions will be provided by email. The sounds will then be discussed in the workshop and compiled into collective soundscapes.
This session is part of the year-long project common /play\ grounds led by yasamin and sass. common /play\ grounds sides with our new programme strand Mujaawarah (neighbouring) striving to nurture rootedness and community, shared wisdom and wellbeing.
Find out more here
Image: Sass Popoli’s illustrations with my photo