PhD Project Summary, March 2024

This creative practice research explores the socio-ecology of Teesside at a time of environmental degradation, socio-economic disadvantage, and industrial ‘development’ through listening/sounding with its human and more-than-human inhabitants.

The project investigates how "ritualised" sound-making practice draws local participants into closer relationship with their lived environment, exploring participatory ecological art’s potential for affect/effect through collective “intensities of listening” and sonic actions.

Interdisciplinary, and informed by anthropological methods, this project addresses key critiques of environmental and participatory art. It will enrich the emergent field of 'ecological sound art' by critically examining the nexus of ecological listening/sounding, social justice, and participatory art.