Space Transcribers

PT/EN

December 2017

Sounds of my Neighbourhood

Soundscape workshop

“Sounds of my Neighborhood” was a workshop held with children from the different social housing estates of Braga, which aimed to promote their awareness to the sonic dimension of the landscapes they inhabit.


For this it was defined that the focus of the activity would be to provide portable sound recorders to the participants so that they could walk around their neighborhood and record soundscapes. From this premise it was necessary to answer the question “what to record?" and, above all, “what to listen to?”. The aim was to encourage participants to cover and experience as much variety as possible in recording the soundscapes of their neighborhoods, thus leading to the further definition of what we might call a “recording program”. Thus, in each neighborhood, each group of two to three children was given a portable sound recording device, along with instructions to complete the following recording steps: first: record the loudest place in the neighborhood; second: record the most peripheral location of the neighborhood; third: record an enclosed space; fourth: record the quietest place in the neighborhood; fifth: record a street, square, or any public space in the neighborhood; and sixth: record the neighborhood garden. Between each step the group would have to specify the location of the recording so that a mapping of the recordings could be done on a single medium. All had the same instructions, but the sensitivities and subjectivity of each group stimulated the diversity of responses. Each of the participants had their own conception of quieter or noisier place in their neighborhood, thus bringing unexpected results.

 

PROMOTOR

Braga City Council


PRODUCTION

Space Transcribers


DATE

December de 2017


PLACE

Braga, Portugal
Enguardas Social Housing Estate
Santa Tecla Social Housing Estate
Picoto Living Complex


COORDINATION

João Maia

Following the pedagogical function and promoting collaboration, it was considered that the most important thing would be to exercise in these children a certain sensitivity and awareness for the sonic dimension of their lived environments, without imposing a rigid path. The children were encouraged to follow autonomous and flexible paths, devoided of paternalisms, allowing them to feel that the space they inhabit does not end with what their vision achieves. As examples, they heard: the sound of the bus stopping near your neighborhood, then moving to other neighborhoods in the city; the sound of church bells in other places; the sound of birds in their gardens, which travel freely around the world and which stopped there at that very moment; the sound of your neighbor playing the guitar and singing a song that was probably created in another country many years ago; the sound of a football match taking place at the gates of his neighborhood.
The audio records were then archived in a Soundcloud database and exhibited in the exhibition "Transcrever: Participatory Actions in Braga's Social Neighborhoods" held at Casa Esperança in Braga in 2017. In this exhibition the visitor “walked” through an installation of soundscapes captured by the children of the neighborhoods, and felt that you could be fully in your imagination as well as in your neighborhood. What unites the distinct experiences of these two agents to which this activity appeals is the moment when, by the purposeful devaluation of visual experience, all our cultural codes that give meaning to our experiences fall to the ground, giving way to an “unbearable silence”. This silence is unbearable only until we begin to listen – from there opens the possibility of learning to "look" again. Contrary to a natural inclination of our culture for a purely visual representation of reality, we thus allow ourselves new approaches to the places and problems we face.

Datasheet

“SOUNDS OF MY NEIGHBOURHOOD”: SOUNDSCAPE WORKSHOP

December DE 2017
 

PROJECT

(RE)ESCREVER O NOSSO BAIRRO
 

PROMOTOR

CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DE BRAGA
 

PRODUCTION

SPACE TRANSCRIBERS
 

COORDINATION

JOÃO MAIA (SPACE TRANSCRIBERS)
 

PARTICIPANTS

Enguardas Social Housing Estate
Adolfo Emílio
Delsio Monteiro
Eduardo Gracias
Jadiana Pinto
Matias Pereira
Michael Jesus
Nataniel Monteiro
Nayara Pinto
Samir Montoia
Tâmara Gracias
 

Santa Tecla Social Housing Estate
André Maia
Gerson Maia
José Pinto
Juliano Cabreiras
Sandro Matos
Sara Nascimento
 

Picoto Living Complex
Carlos
José Montolha
Júnior Guedes
Lais E.
Manuel Salazar
Mara Andreina Maia

 

SUPPORT

Enguardas Social Housing Estate Residents’ Association
Red Cross, Braga delegation – Geração Tecla E6G
 

FINANCIAMENTO

PROGRAMA OPERACIONAL REGIONAL DO NORTE – NORTE2020
FUNDO SOCIAL EUROPEU