What Does Wakefield Sound Like?
What Does Wakefield Sound Like? is an interactive audio-visual project, inspired by Barbara Hepworth’s own affinity with the Yorkshire Landscape. The project was formulated as a collaboration between young people from the Next Generation Youth and Community Project, musicians Duncan Chapman and Supriya Nagarajan from Manasimitra, a Dewsbury artist collective, and Wakefield based visual artist Helen Thomas.
With a central focus on encouraging engagement with localised green and blue spaces, the project saw young people connect nature and local community in the Eastmoor area of Wakefield. By recording and mixing sounds that encompass the local soundscape, and with the assistance of musicians Duncan Chapman and Supriya Nagarajan, the young people created a sonic exploration of these interactions, representative of their experiences of the city today.
Visitors are invited to listen to the sounds that the young people created while looking through a window of the gallery, looking out over the city. Listeners are encouraged to pause, reflect and be present as they listen to this very personal response to our current moment.
You can listen here by playing the video on this page.
Download the free Bloomberg Connects app to listen in the gallery.
Listen Here: What does Wakefield sound like?
As part of Wakefield’s Festival of the Earth this project worked with young people to creatively connect them with nature in their local area.
Hepworth’s influence was carried throughout the project, with the young people working outside in nature, akin to Hepworth’s own experience working on her sculptures outdoors, in her garden.
The young people worked with the artists to mix field recordings they made in the green spaces in Eastmoor – an area just beyond the bridge from The Hepworth Wakefield. To illustrate their sounds, they collaborated with Artist Helen Thomas to create artwork for a gallery window which overlooks their local area. The designs are taken from sketches the young people made along their route to, and in, The Hepworth Wakefield Garden, of the often overlooked urban flora.
With thanks to Eman, Roman, Mustafa, Farouk, Abzy, Abdul, Abdullah, Esa, Ali, Ania, Tito, Ibrahim, Amir and the staff at Next Generation.
“I am happy to see myself in here, it is amazing. I’m happy to see myself in the project”
“I had a chance to do something different and creative, I feel it can help me with my college work, because I feel inspired”
