Sounding Out Wells: sonic postcards for heritage and environmental engagement

Lead Research Organisation: The Open University
Department Name: Faculty of Arts and Social Sci (FASS)

Abstract

This project, 'Sounding Out Wells', will employ and develop an innovative art-based methodology to capture and represent the voices of coastal communities, articulating the issues they face and bringing these to the attention of policy-makers and the wider public with the aim of improving public engagement and consultation in environmental and coastal management planning. The project develops a series of sonic postcards reflecting the heritage and environment of Wells-next-the Sea past, present and future.

Sounding out Wells (SoW) explores the sonic history and heritage of Wells next the Sea on the North Norfolk Coast. Sound artist Rebecca Lee and the SoW team will work with volunteers and school groups to produce a set of 'sonic postcards' for permanent exhibition in the newly constructed Heritage Centre at Wells Maltings. These will use existing oral testimony sound archive along with new recordings made specially for the project. SoW will contribute to building a distinctive role for the Maltings as a cultural hub and develop the environmental agenda at Wells Maltings which will create a public forum to debate local responses to climate change and sea level rise. Speaking to issues past, present and future, the Wells 'sonic postcards' will directly address this agenda of environment and coastal change..

Sonic postcards are created from segments of recorded oral testimony and interview material combined with environmental sound recordings, locally performed, created and relevant music and data transformed into electronic musical sound. These are woven into short compositions of 5-10 minutes as items of focused listening which tell a specific story, but also pose questions which encourage listeners to think and reflect on issues and themes. SoW will develop a new methodology enabling volunteers to work with a professional sound artist in order to create together new sonic postcard sound artworks.

The North Norfolk coast consists of low-lying sandy cliffs, dunes, mudflats, creeks, fresh and saltwater marshes. It is subject to regular inundation from storms resulting in a vulnerable changing and increasingly volatile coastline and coastal margin. The consequences of climate change have resulted in increases in the incidence and power of storm events, rising average temperatures and rising sea levels. The Norfolk coast is an important bellwether in terms of coastal vulnerability in relation to sea level rises. The area has been called a major and significant UK laboratory in terms of coastal adaptation and climate change. Facing up to these challenges will concern people of all ages. SoW contributes to this developing environmental agenda by inviting volunteers and schools groups to think about how the coast is changing and how local heritage and experience can help us prepare and plan for the future.

In summary the Sounding out Wells project will:

- Develop a series of 'sonic postcards' reflecting the heritage and environment of Wells past, present and future;
- Explore the potential of the existing Oral archive at Wells Maltings, enhance it with new recordings and create new sound-based displays grounded in issues of coastal change;
- Develop a new collaborative methodology involving schools, volunteers, local groups, and facilitators working with sound artist Rebecca Lee;
- Create debate and discussion relating to the human and environmental challenges faced by Wells in the future and which speaks to the Wells Maltings developing environmental agenda.

Planned Impact

The Sounding Out Wells (SoW) project is a collaboration between the Open University, Wells Maltings (WM) and the Norfolk Coast Partnership (NCP) who undertake statutory planning for the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The main direct beneficiaries are Wells Maltings, the NCP, local publics in the Wells area and visitors to WM Heritage Centre (WMHC). Wider and longer-term benefits will develop from dissemination of the project sonic engagement methodology set out in a Good Practice Guide (GPG) as a resource for regional and national third sector organisations such as the National Association of AONBs, museums, libraries and associated local history groups, and for arts engagement practitioners wishing to use sonic postcards in public engagement. SoW will involve community groups, volunteers and local schools working with sound artist Rebecca Lee, SoW and WM staff to devise and create new sonic exhibits and resources for the WM Heritage Centre.

The project supports WM plans to utilise their oral history archives, build on their heritage offer and further the newly developing WM environmental agenda. The project works with WM and NCP to pioneer the use of sound art works in the form of 'Sonic Postcards' to engage local people of all ages with the environmental issues and challenges created by contemporary coastal change.

SoW will directly benefit WM by creating a display of ten sonic postcards as key new additions to the WMHG. In addition, the project will explore the currently underutilised Wells oral history archive and make this more readily available for future use. SoW will create a searchable database catalogue that will enhance the research/resource potential of the existing content and create a home for the new oral testimony recordings generated through the SoW project. SoW will deliver a freely available digital searchable database plus digitisation of the audio recordings enabling Wells Maltings to meet a growing need for access to these resources from research inquiries relating to this material.

Building capacity for WM will also be advanced by training Wells Maltings staff and key volunteers in audio recording and interviewing techniques and by developing an accessible technique for making sonic postcards. This will be set out in the accompanying GPG and will provide a legacy for creative collaboration when funding ends. The project will help build outreach and dialogue between the newly refurbished Wells Maltings, residents and visitors by encouraging and inviting participation across a wide range of publics including schools, local societies and local sound artists.

SoW will benefit participating community groups, volunteers, local schools and also visitors to WMHC through an imaginative engagement with the history of Wells using the medium of creative sonic heritage. It will also enhance access to the oral history archive. Sound Artist Rebecca Lee and WM Outreach and Learning Manager will work with local schools, giving teachers and students the skills and resources to undertake investigations and make reports using sound recording techniques and equipment. The process of making the sonic postcards, and their display (exhibited at WM and elsewhere) provide an opportunity for local people of all ages to discuss and consider coastal change and give voice to their concerns and hopes for the future.

In turn this will further benefit the developing public engagement strategy of the NCP with coastal planning for the AONB. The SoW Coastal Futures public event will discuss concerns, hopes and visions for the future of Wells and feed directly into AONB and shoreline management planning. The GPG will be free to download as a resource for public engagement. It will be taken to the National Association of AONBs annual conference and feed into current national debate around greater public engagement in the shoreline management process.

Publications

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McNally D (2023) Planning, Art, and Aesthetics Edited by Katie McClymont and Danny McNally in Planning Theory & Practice

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Revill G (2020) Voicing the environment: Latour, Peirce and an expanded politics in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

 
Title Audio documentary Holme Dunewalk 
Description This is an audio documentary about living sand dunes made in collaboration with Norfolk County Council and the ENDURE living sand dunes project. It was made by project team members Kim Hammond and Chris Bonfiglioli. Duration 27.50 mins. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact This is part of an ongoing engagement strategy with local people and visitors. 
 
Title Audio documentary Winterton Dunewalk 
Description This is an audio documentary about living sand dunes made in collaboration with Norfolk County Council and the ENDURE living sand dunes project. It was made by project team members Kim Hammond and Chris Bonfiglioli. Duration 15.04 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact This is part of an ongoing engagement strategy with local people and visitors. 
 
Title Conversations with Artists 
Description This is a video discussion and introduction to the work of four artists UK based artists who's work is centrally concerned with creative public engagement around environmental issues. It is a resource and source for use in further discussions around good and innovative practice in this area and itself a documentary of the work, approaches and experience of the artists concerned. Duration 30 mins. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2021 
Impact This is part of ongoing programme of outreach and engagement exploring best practice and common ground in relation of creative and co-produced public engagement between artists, academic researchers and policy makers. The film formed the basis for a strand at the Eco-creativity Conference (online) November 2021 sponsored by the Open University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. 
 
Title Dunewalk Holkham North Norfolk Coast 
Description This is an audio documentary about living sand dunes made in collaboration with Norfolk County Council and the ENDURE living sand dunes project. It was made by project team members Kim Hammond and Chris Bonfiglioli. Duration 16.40 mins 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact This is part of an ongoing engagement strategy with local people and visitors. 
 
Title Fishing for Life 
Description In the UK, fishing directly or indirectly sustains the welfare of many coastal regions and supports livelihoods beyond the catching sector. Inshore fisheries are under severe pressure from many quarters, including climate change, coastal development, rising costs, and unsuitable regulation. The sonic postcard Fishing for Life explores some of the many difficulties facing the fishing community in Wells-next-the-Sea. It also voices some of the strategies that these fishers use to cope. The postcard illustrates how people in the sector work hard to make themselves resilient and adaptable in ways that help them respond to current and future challenges. Fishing for Life features the voices of fishers from Wells and others working in the sector along this section of the Norfolk Coast who recount their experience of environmental, economic, social, and technological change. 
Type Of Art Composition/Score 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact On permanent display at Wells Maltings Heritage Centre 
URL https://www.wellsmaltings.org.uk/fishing-for-life/
 
Title Living well with Dunes 
Description This postcard explores a nature-based solution to coastal defence - a highly controversial issue for locals and planners in the region where hard engineering solutions have frequently been deployed as a matter of common practice. The centre of the piece is an online workshop discussion with researchers from Sounding Coastal Change, collaborators with expertise in coastal management from Norfolk Coast Partnership and Norfolk County Council and a sound artist. Sand dunes are living entities that continually change - sometimes quickly over weeks and months, and sometimes slowly and imperceptibly over decades and centuries. It is this very flexibility that enables dune structures to absorb the sea's power, providing an organic coastal defence from flooding. The work evokes the vitality of the natural sand dune systems, as well as voicing the key species that dwell there: the marram grass, the natterjack toads and the skylarks. These constituents are fundamental to the dune's health and to the region's flourishing biodiversity. (8 mins) 
Type Of Art Composition/Score 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact On permanent exhibition at Wells Maltings Heritage Centre. 
URL https://www.wellsmaltings.org.uk/living-well-with-dunes/
 
Title Living with Terns 
Description Kim Hammond, Chris Bonfiglioli, George Revill and and Chris Cook of the project team facilitated a number of online workshops and interviews in the process of making and producing a 7 minute sonic postcard made in collaboration and deliberation with the Norfolk Coast Partnership, Wells Maltings and the Norfolk County Council ENDURE and a number of participants including from The RSPB and Holkham Hall. 
Type Of Art Composition/Score 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact The sonic postcard will be used for facilitating coastal change events as the project proceeds. We will report more in due course 
 
Title Sounding out Wells 
Description Exhibition formed from eight 'sonic postcards', creative sound works which engage with social issues and environmental concerns faced by people at Wells next the Sea. Each postcard last between 6 and 14 minutes duration.. The postcards are: School's Out, Sea Change, Living Well with Dunes, Wells Past, Lifeboat Horse, Living with Terns, Lobster Catch, Fishing for Life. There is also a short round table discussion which describes the making of the sonic postcards. These form a permanent exhibition with a listening station in the Heritage Gallery but are also set out as a dedicated Web page on the Wells Maltings Web site. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact On permanent exhibition in the Wells Maltings Heritage Centre Galleries. 
URL https://www.wellsmaltings.org.uk/whats-on/sounding-out-wells/
 
Description The Sounding Out Wells sonic postcards are not intended to simply tell or instruct, but instead raises an awareness and set of questions that enhance sensitivity and attentiveness. The aim is to raise as a matter of concern such as the idea of living sand dunes as a practical nature-based response to coastal management for North Norfolk in an age of climate change or the complexities intersections of governance. environmental management and climate change for the inshore fishing fleet. Though there are multiple voices and opinions expressed in the sonic postcards the works try not to simply endorse expressed views. Rather they aim to set out the terrain and contours of contested issues. The overall sense of provisionally in the discussion in the sonic postcards is quite deliberate and is an invitation to the listener to find out more, to discuss further and make up their own mind.
Exploitation Route The sonic postcard concept may be used in a variety of contexts, we are currently working on developing these.
Sectors Education

Environment

Government

Democracy and Justice

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

URL https://www.wellsmaltings.org.uk/whats-on/sounding-out-wells/
 
Description The Sonic Postcards are on permanent display in the galleries of Wells Maltings Arts and Heritage Centre and are also hosted on the Centre website
First Year Of Impact 2023
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

Economic

Policy & public services

 
Description AHRC BBC Radio 3 Green Thinking Podcast 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Green Thinking: Seascapes and Blue Gold
"Dr Emma McKinley and Professor George Revill share their research on how climate change affects oceans, and and what they have learnt working with local communities."

Green Thinking podcast with Eleanor Barraclough. This special series has been created in partnership between the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (part of UKRI). There aretwenty-six episodes which take a deep-dive into the latest research on the climate and nature emergency, ahead of COP26 in November 2021.
Duration 27 mins 08/06/2021
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021