Untold Skies: a soundwalk (booklet)

Untold Skies : a soundwalk

A project by Tina Hitchens & Jen Green for Promenade - Weston super Mare, 2023

Untold Skies is an artist commission for the Promenade weekender, 15 - 17 th September 2023

Composed by Tina Hitchens & Jen Green for a walk along the seafront, Untold Skies is an immersive soundwork offering a creative perspective on the landscape and the sensory experience of Weston’s edgelands.

It features the musical and spoken word contributions of workshop participants from Humans of Weston Creative Recovery Group and Weston Artspace woven with the artists’ new work.

During the project, a workshop on the seafront involved deep listening exercises and participants made field recordings along the way from bandstand to Birnbeck pier lookout, where we talked about the old pier and did mindful writing.

Tina then led music improvisations with a group in Weston Artspace, drawing inspiration from sea and seafront, and Jen led a workshop on writing about what makes Weston unique, the edges, and what the sea brings us.

Field recordings & spoken words: Martyn, Nada Magriel, Reily

Music improvisations: Andy, Bev, Jo, Katie, Nada, Sam, Scarlett, Zena

Writing and spoken words: Nada Magriel & Sam Francis

Many thanks to Bev of Humans of Weston and to Weston Artspace.

Additional words by Jen Green

Field recordings, music composition and production by Tina Hitchens

Booklet design by Matthew Grigg

Pop in some headphones and scan the QR code to hear the sound walk:

tinyurl.com/yv6n65rf

Soundwalk route

Starting at Madeira Cove bandstand, walk past the marine lake, along the promenade. At Anchor Head if the tide is lower, you can go down to the cove and onto the slipway (there is uneven ground here), then back up to the promenade and end at Birnbeck Pier lookout (down a few steps). There are plaques with writing here as part of the Untold Skies project during the Promenade weekender.

The seascape posed a devil

I lost my thread to trust

I laughed it off like anyone would but really I want to revel

This place made me reveal a neutral honesty

I still towed the line, and said I was fine as paper layers I began to peel

I wrote some words, I threw some paint

More glimmers than triggers I found facing forward

Nothing’s truthfully an imposition

Luminous awareness feels the opposite of faint

The sea glowed pure white in a patch just like a lake

Surrounded by itself, with different cloaks on If you put yourself there for everything, beware what manifests with might

Calm strength in the land

It’s at one with my heart

Sea, sun and sand, it has held my hand

God gave me a huge chance

Now, I want to dance

Yes I’m kinda freelance, There’s been a whole lotta happenstance

~Nada~

Where’s the sea gone?

It is a place of contrasts

Peaceful / hectic (at the ends and main drag)

Seagulls squawking seeking food…

Dogs barking, families chattering, kids laughing

At the end of the pier my senses explode and I have to escape

…so long, so long, so long to these worries I say as I blow them all out into the long day.

Across the longer sands and the longest skies.

~Sam~

Deep listening prompt

You could try a listening exercise on the seafront. Find a place to be still, and see if you can listen carefully to your surroundings (it may help to close your eyes).

As you listen deeply, see if you can really focus in on individual sounds.

Maybe you can hear a distant seagull, or someone laughing.

Next, see if you can widen your listening to include everything around you, all at once.

Birds fly, blue skies contemplating life forever moving, moving around

Sounds upon sounds, layers of frequency Beckons the senses, moulding, Life merging together to create sensation

Blue greens yellows pinks purples brown, concrete and earth meet, two worlds created together forever merging together upon layer

Man meets earth, earth meets man

Sea meets sand, hand in hand

yellow lichen on the wall, salt encrusted rocks, there may be crabs

Windy, then busy, then settled unknown, then home, then spiralled vexed, then wrapped up boxed, then I lapped it up a test

then best

Come find us

Wash in and out like the tide

As emotions Movement

Incremental changes In different ranges ~Nada~

E ndlessly reaching the edge

D on’t fall off

G o go and keep going

E dge towards it

S lowly

To be on the edge of things is to be in a place of possibilities.

Here in Weston, the silt takes the edges out into the estuary and throws it over to Wales who catch it and a game of in-between ensues in this middlespace; hybrid, liminal, subliminal, submerged. ~Sam~

Glowing, sandy, openness

Unique to me

Weston on the sea

My recovery

Wherein I got free ~Nada~

The first time, we came for sand sculptures and I turned my nose up at the brown silty water, dismissing it …

…assuming Weston super Mare wasn’t for me – not the big pier, not the high street, not a sea swim. Looking closer, there’s so much more…

At a donkey’s pace

sweet fry doughnut.

The sky; a reminder of the sea ~Jen~

A place of two piers, and many sides, take your pick. What was once centre of attention is now in the sidelines, derelict, at risk, from sea, storm and fire.

The Victorian pleasure pier is retrograde

Amusement arcades have had an upgrade

Take a walk along the promenade

Weston moves and morphs weathering all changes but always everyone wants to be beside the seaside; “When it’s sunny, it’s not long until you hear laughter”

Edges move with the tide moving in and out, one side to another. The sea’s out there

like Wales, like Brean, like Steep Holm

Half high half low;

One side storm, one side blue

One side sea, one side land.

Look out at the sea, out yonder

You can fill the distance with whatever you want

Anything you want for your future and write it in fancy font

Put some parties and delights

Well deserved wins in your sights

Good meetings, some improvements

Lovely feelings, perfect moments

Recuperate all of your wants

Did you want a ball with the debutantes?

Do you dream of cinematic romance?

Why not give it fair chance?

Let your future have space to really be

Let your fantasies run wild and free

That expanse wants your stuff

Map it out rough

Call up imagination

Ambition and fun

Plot the unknown ahead

With stitches of gold thread

And the Universe will help with the finer points of the path you find that you wish to anoint

So look out at the sea, out yonder

Dot the distance with all lovely things

Make yours your promising future

And pay attention as the shoreline sings.

~Nada~

Writing prompt

Up near Birnbeck pier lookout is a round shelter with three benches offering three perspectives. Taking a turn on each bench, think of a few words to capture each outlook, using your senses.

Here are two sketches from our workshop (Nada & Martyn)

Tina Hitchens

Tina is an improviser, flautist and composer / sound artist who works largely in the fields of free improvisation, sound art, and contemporary classical music, playing and writing in a variety of musical groups and often working with artists from other disciplines. Previous projects have included workshops and song writing with community groups for Hengrove and Whitchurch Community Orchard, and a project based around the sounds and histories of caves in the Forest of Dean.

Tina is interested in the peripheries of sound and how they connect with our environment, and how people experience themselves and others through sound. She is currently training as a music therapist.

tinahitchens.com

Jen Green

Jen is a poet based in Bristol, her work focuses on small details in quiet places and connects them to universal things.

A Bath Spa Nature & Travel Writing MA graduate, her poems have appeared in Elsewhere: A Journal of Place and as a guest performance as part of River Echoes – a series of Deep Listening walks by audio-visual artist Kathy Hinde.

jencgreen.com

Commission by Promenade for the Promenade Weekender, September 2023, and made possible with support from Arts Council England. promenadeprojects.org.uk