Voices of The Avon Tideway

Voices of the Avon Tideway is a public art residency and permanent artwork exploring the soundscape of Bristol and the River Avon, as part of the regeneration of St Philip’s Marsh.

One of the largest tides on Earth flows into Bristol twice a day. It is easy to live here and barely notice the twelve-hour surge of the North Atlantic Ocean, but for the birdlife of the city it creates a constantly shifting ecosystem with new opportunities and challenges at every stage of the tide.

None of this happens silently. As these birds follow their food upriver or retreat from flooding mudflats, they add their voices to the city's soundscape.

Human lives move in counterpoint to this immense, slow pulse of nature. Our voices reflect off concrete and glass, echo through underpasses, and multiply via unintended quirks of architecture. The city’s acoustic ecology shapes how we move, communicate, and listen.

This project tunes into the rich chorus of these voices and the acoustic spaces they share. It will explore Bristol’s most interesting soundscapes and ask what we can learn from them, particularly for those who rely on sound to navigate the city.

As an artistic response, spatially choreographed compositions for human voices will be developed. Drawing inspiration from birdsong and ecological time, these works will emerge from and move through their surroundings, shaped by practices of embodied listening and sighted guiding.  

This research will also inform the design of a permanent public artwork on the banks of the tidal Avon. 

An acoustic sculpture that generates no sound, but reflects what it hears.

Always listening and inviting us to do the same.

Team:

Dan Pollard - Lead Artist

Holly Thomas - Choreographer, Embodied Listening and Accessibility Specialist

William Goodchild - Orchestrator and Conductor

Ellian Showering - Vocalist

Ellie Williams - Wildlife Sound Recordist

This commission is produced by Ginkgo Projects on behalf of Deeley Freed, the project funders.