Radio Arts Catalyst

Poetry as Field Recording is a collaborative audio work made by Anna Kime, Irina Sadovina, Ceri Nicholls, Nastassja Simensky and Ioannis Andronikidis.

Poetry as Field Recording is the second episode from Leaky Transmissions, a project by Nottingham-based artist Nastassja Simensky. Responding to Arts Catalyst’s Emergent Ecologies programme, Leaky Transmissions includes spatial and sonic workshops, talks, walks and screenings that will culminate in a series of audio works on Radio Arts Catalyst.

This audio collaboration emerged through a talk and workshop led by writer and poet Mina Gorji. Drawing on artist Ashley Holmes’ Sonic Walk in Gleadless Valley, and Breakwater’s forest meditation in Ecclesall Woods earlier this year as part of the Emergent Ecologies programme, Mina’s workshop focused on the experience of listening, through writing.

By collectively thinking through the challenges of distinguishing and articulating what and how we hear, the group considered how listening is culturally informed, and how our comprehension of what we hear is shaped through our own language(s).

This twenty-minute episode includes poetry, field recordings, reflections and linguistic experiments. Together, the contributors developed ideas and approaches to describing and recreating sound in words, as well as thinking about how they might focus and enhance their own experiences of listening to the environment around them.

Works included in this collaborative episode include:

Anna Kime: Herring Gul and Listening to the Fern-Owl

Irina Sadovina: Writing the Nightjar, Creatures Call and Owls Call

Ioannis Andronikidis: Soft Grounds Too & Fro

Ceri Nicholls: Ersatz, the moor at night

Nastassja Simensky and Rebecca Lee: Cuckoo [Rings on Water]