Workshops
Intergenerational workshops are integral to inform the outcome of the Almanac for a Walled City project.
Local Community Workshops
Christopher kicked off the project with a programme of intergenerational workshops at Nerve Centre from November 2022.
Up first was a series of listening walks with community groups in the city. Using Pauline Olivero’s instruction to “[w]alk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears”, Christopher led participants along the city’s walls, focusing on the ways in which the sounds around them changed at different points along the route.
It’s certainly true that Derry folk love talking about the weather, which gave Christopher valuable information and raised some difficult questions around how the weather in the city has changed and the responsibilities we have in paying attention to and caring for the environment around us.
School Workshops
The Model Primary School attended more raucous workshops where the focus was on getting the kids to engage with the act of listening and understanding the weather by making some noise!
One session featured John D’Arcy, lecturer at the Sonic Arts Research Centre in Queen’s University Belfast and a member of the experimental vocal choir Hive, to encourage kids to explore various ways to use their voice to express the sounds of weather.
And another exciting session featured Shelley Roden — a foley artist from world famous Skywalker Sound in California — demonstrating how everyday objects can be used to create different weather sounds.
Photo Gallery
