Ipswich - Seconds of Sound at Suffolk Libraries

Welcome Home Everybody!

In 2024 I was privileged and delighted to be appointed ‘Environmentalist in Residence’ for Suffolk Libraries, an independent charity running the public library service for the county of Suffolk in the UK. For this residency I created a project titled ‘Seconds of Sound’ within which lay two main strands of work.

The aim of the first was for me to walk between all 45 of Suffolk’s public libraries, recording acoustic habitats and environmental sound on the way and then disseminating these recordings into a collection to be added to the main library catalogue. Reaching between 1 and 3 libraries a week and covering 350 miles in total these walks began in late April and finished in the middle of October. They were surrounded by spring, summer and autumn, visited city, town, and village, farm, field and house, and followed road, track, path, coast, river and railway. 

The second strand was to create and deliver public events and activities to engage people in the sounds of the world around them and to encourage Active Environmental Listening. This work involved me leading public soundwalks, giving talks and delivering workshops at libraries across the county, and led to the creation of a unique Nature Silent Disco, the first performance of which took place at the First Light Festival in Lowestoft that year. 

This episode of the HomeSounds Show is taken from a conversation I had with Suffolk Libraries children’s librarian Sophie Green in October 2024. This conversation, part of Suffolk Libraries ‘Wild Reads’ initiative, followed an incarnation of the Nature Silent Disco at Ipswich Library that drew on extracts from the Seconds of Sound collection I had created, live environmental sound and elements of bio-sonification. 

In our conversation we discuss the aims of the residency, my experiences of walking around Suffolk recording sound, the business of field recording, the HomeSounds project, soundwalking practice, active environmental listening and some of the complexities of human relationships with environmental sound. 

At the end of our discussion is an extract of the Nature Silent Disco recorded at Mildenhall Public Library towards the end of my residency.

LINKS

HomeSounds
Seconds of Sound Collection
Suffolk Libraries
Suffolk Libraries Creative Residencies
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club