In early 2023 we worked with artist Mary Walters to get young people involved in her incredible Glacial Narratives art exhibition about ice which she co-created with artists Elizabeth Bourne and Adam Sébire. What emerged was an astonishing sample set of dance music made from field recordings of sounds of ice.
The starting point of our part of the project was that Mary had become inspired by some very interesting audio field recordings from inside glaciers that had been donated by Peter Nienow from sounds from the international cryosphere community. Mary thought the sounds were so interesting in terms of texture and interest and she wondered if they could somehow be turned into dance music. Cue Andra Black, music production Tutor at Tinderbox. He took the sounds and worked with them to produce an interactive sample set of dance music samples that young people could use to create their own dance music tracks. Andra ran the workshop with young people from community groups all across Edinburgh which culminated in a workshop at Custom House as part of the Glacial Narratives exhibition.
Ice sounds track –
The final workshop also included brilliant interactive projection mapping workshop that was designed and led by the wonderful Mettje Hunneman. Young people were able to project messages and images about the climate emergency on to a sculpture of an iceberg while creating dance music using the ice sounds sample set. It felt like a cross between a nightclub, a protest and an art gallery!