VotE Sonic Circle: 'Listening to Small Things'

Voices on the Edge Sonic Circle and Side Quests invite you to the workshop Listening to Small Things.

This Sonic Circle explores practices of attentive listening to small, often overlooked phenomena — beginning with the body and extending outward to insects, vegetal life, and the subtle rhythms of shared environments. Through walking, listening, conversation, and collective making, participants will explore processes of translation between sound, movement, gathering, and place.

Side Quests is an ongoing collaborative project founded by Gaia Blandina and Bryony Aitchison that integrates sound art, poetry, and participatory research to creatively reinterpret landscapes. Working across sonic art, ecopoetics, and philosophy, the project uses walking as both a creative practice and a research method. Rather than a neatly packaged research project, Side Quests unfolds as an unpredictable series of art walks that reimagine how we engage with landscapes. These walks are not guided tours but creative disruptions, inviting participants to challenge habitual ways of relating to place and to embrace encounters that are messy, spontaneous, and unexpected.

The workshop will be facilitated by Jess Beechey and Gaia Blandina.

Bios:

Jess Beechey (she/her) is a practice-based PhD researcher and sound artist working with site-specific sound, performance, and participatory methods in Cornwall. Her research explores how sound art and deep listening in manmade subterranean heritage sites can articulate the political agency of marginalised communities and reframe Cornish identity. Alongside this research, she works as a sound designer and performs in a touring/recording band, bringing collaborative, noisy, and experimental approaches into both her research and creative practice.

Dr Gaia Blandina (she/they) is a cellist, free improviser, interdisciplinary sound artist, and Lecturer in Music at Falmouth University. Her practice-based research integrates music, sound art, and visual art, exploring composition, improvisation, and curation with a particular interest in non-methods and collaboration as open, nomadic ways of making. 

Tickets and timings:

Tickets:

The VotE Sonic Circle is on a pay what you can basis:

• £10
• £8
• £5
• £3

There is also a free option to book and attend the VotE Sonic Circle. We actively do not want cost to be a barrier to entry, and this booking option is offered on a no questions asked basis.

VoTE Sonic Circle timings:

The Sonic Circle sessions will run from 18:00 - 20:00

Contact us:

T: +44(0)1326 259349

E: boxoffice@falmouth.ac.uk

Photo credit: Image features Isobel Anderson’s workshop ‘Summoning Esoteric Voices with Live Electronics’ at AMATA. Image taken by James Scarle.