Estuary Sound Ark

Producing & Screen FuturesPractice-Led ResearchSound & MusicArt & Creative Works

12 Jan

Estuary Sound Ark | Creative Estuary + Radiophonic Institute Commission

Estuary Sound Ark is an Ivor Novello Award–nominated, large-scale sonic exploration across the Thames Estuary, preserving everyday sounds at risk of disappearing due to climate and ecological change. Commissioned by The Radiophonic Institute and Creative Estuary, the project connected communities across Kent and Essex to their environments through sound, music, and listening.

Designed as a 100-year time capsule, the Sound Ark holds thousands of recordings from the South East of England for future generations; asking what it means to remember landscapes not only through images or documents, but through sound. With a particular focus on the Thames Estuary, the project explored how ecological change reshapes not just physical environments, but the sonic identities of place.

I worked as Creative Producer, collaborating closely with electronic artist Matthew Herbert, and commissioning composers, artists, poets, and book-makers. The project included a large public callout, extensive community engagement, and training programmes for local young people in field recording, sound preservation, and composition.

Thousands of sounds were collected through workshops, sound walks, and public recordings. These formed the basis for new musical scores and sonic works, developed in collaboration with partners including BBC Radio 3 and The British Library, and presented through festivals such as Ramsgate Festival of Sound, Intrafest, and Electric Medway.

The newly commissioned works were performed once only in a live public performance at The Gulbenkian, before being sealed inside the Sound Ark for 100 years. The Ark is now on public display in Kent, standing as a long-term act of climate memory and collective listening.