Voice Notes: Creativity, Technology and Exile in Nottingham and Slemani UNESCO Cities of Literature
Lead Research Organisation:
Nottingham Trent University
Department Name: Sch of Arts and Humanities
Abstract
'Voice Notes' is a creative writing and sound arts initiative working with displaced communities in Nottingham and Slemani in Iraqi-Kurdistan. Building on my AHRC-funded 'Crossed Lines: Literature and Telephony' project, 'Voice Notes' engages international audiences with original research on the mobile technologies, literary communication and forced migration, and facilitates new pathways for knowledge exchange using innovative approaches to the telephone with a broad range of cultural organisations. Enabling emerging voices through transnational cultural exchange activities supported by the UNESCO Creative Cities network, the project will result in the co-creation of an interactive performance and exhibition, a mobile app, an online sound archive, a co-edited pamphlet of poetry, and a toolkit. Through these activities and outputs, it will engage refugee communities, NGOs, cultural partners, educators, artists, activists and members of the public with creative approaches to everyday technologies, shaping new ways of thinking about ethical networks, transnational communication, and the possibilities of talking and listening across borders.
Offering new opportunities for transnational engagement and empowering under-represented voices, the project will involve a series of writing and spoken word workshops delivered in collaboration with refugee arts organisation Compass Collective. Supporting displaced communities in Nottingham and Slemani, these workshops will explore the transmission of the voice and the possibilities and limitations of telephone technologies in navigating and communicating experiences of exile. Extending the original methodologies developed during 'Calling Across Borders' (part of the 'Crossed Lines' project), young refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons will be invited to compose, perform and record their contributions on the phone, resulting in the co-creation of a multilingual collection of 'voice notes' left by and for people who have experienced forced displacement. These voice notes will form the basis of interactive performances and exhibitions produced by acclaimed Kurdish-Swedish composer Hardi Kurda to be held in Nottingham and Slemani. The events will make use of a directional sound bar that responds to the movements of audience members, enabling visitors to experience and contribute to the shaping of the project by moving through the exhibition and tapping into intersecting telephone calls. Members of the public will also have the opportunity to leave their own voice notes in response to the project; a selection of moderated responses will in turn feed into the dynamic and evolving telephone soundscape. Furthermore, the voice notes will be shared online through an interactive mobile app and sound archive on our project website, and selected voice notes will form the basis of a co-edited pamphlet of poetry developed in partnership with a refugee writer, with an accompanying toolkit produced in collaboration with Compass Collective and disseminated through Counterpoints Arts and the UNESCO Creative Cities network.
This project has been co-designed with a number of international cultural organisations, NGOs and artists including Compass Collective, Counterpoints Arts, Hardi Kurda, New Art Exchange, Refugee Roots, Nottingham and Slemani UNESCO Cities of Literature and STEP. Developing the methodologies established with Compass Collective during 'Calling Across Borders' through participatory arts and collaborative exchange, and disseminating to a wider international audience the potential for innovative approaches to everyday telecommunication technologies to facilitate creative self-expression, the literary arts, civic dialogue, and cross-cultural communication, the project will significantly advance ways of thinking about the relationship between migration, literature and new developments in telephone technologies.
Offering new opportunities for transnational engagement and empowering under-represented voices, the project will involve a series of writing and spoken word workshops delivered in collaboration with refugee arts organisation Compass Collective. Supporting displaced communities in Nottingham and Slemani, these workshops will explore the transmission of the voice and the possibilities and limitations of telephone technologies in navigating and communicating experiences of exile. Extending the original methodologies developed during 'Calling Across Borders' (part of the 'Crossed Lines' project), young refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons will be invited to compose, perform and record their contributions on the phone, resulting in the co-creation of a multilingual collection of 'voice notes' left by and for people who have experienced forced displacement. These voice notes will form the basis of interactive performances and exhibitions produced by acclaimed Kurdish-Swedish composer Hardi Kurda to be held in Nottingham and Slemani. The events will make use of a directional sound bar that responds to the movements of audience members, enabling visitors to experience and contribute to the shaping of the project by moving through the exhibition and tapping into intersecting telephone calls. Members of the public will also have the opportunity to leave their own voice notes in response to the project; a selection of moderated responses will in turn feed into the dynamic and evolving telephone soundscape. Furthermore, the voice notes will be shared online through an interactive mobile app and sound archive on our project website, and selected voice notes will form the basis of a co-edited pamphlet of poetry developed in partnership with a refugee writer, with an accompanying toolkit produced in collaboration with Compass Collective and disseminated through Counterpoints Arts and the UNESCO Creative Cities network.
This project has been co-designed with a number of international cultural organisations, NGOs and artists including Compass Collective, Counterpoints Arts, Hardi Kurda, New Art Exchange, Refugee Roots, Nottingham and Slemani UNESCO Cities of Literature and STEP. Developing the methodologies established with Compass Collective during 'Calling Across Borders' through participatory arts and collaborative exchange, and disseminating to a wider international audience the potential for innovative approaches to everyday telecommunication technologies to facilitate creative self-expression, the literary arts, civic dialogue, and cross-cultural communication, the project will significantly advance ways of thinking about the relationship between migration, literature and new developments in telephone technologies.
