Sound and listening

Recent work

  • Facilitator - Field Recording and listening workshop in FACT Liverpool - 2025

  • Lead Artist - ‘An Inquest Concerning Teeth’ - soundwalk on Crosby Beach for Liverpool Independent Biennial 2025, commissioned by The Royal Standard. Read more here

Sara’s work often explores the overlap between human experience and the natural world, and she is interested in how listening can connect us to places, and each to other.  

 Sara runs a soundwalk collective, Sound Pals, exploring the neighbourhood sounds of Liverpool through active listening. With this project, in addition to testing different listening techniques and theories, Sara wants to explore how active listening can build appreciation for the green spaces close to home, and build connections between people in the local community.  Follow on Instagram and message to join the Whatsapp community.

Sound Pals

Current work

  • ‘Sounds of Goodison park’
    An archive of the neighbourhood sounds of the stadium in the months leading up to its closure.  She recorded the sounds of the streets during the final six matches of the season, to document the sounds of the neighbourhood, ahead of the drastic change for businesses and locals. This will be presented as a sound map, as well as a sound installation. 

  •  ‘Sounding the Past’ with Fiona Brehony
    Sound walk with Fiona Brehony along the River Gout, to explore how sound connects memory and place while listening for traces of the areas’ industrial path. 

  • And an ambisonic microphone build with Mali Draper…

Soundwalk 9th March 2025

On our first soundwalk we walked in a loop around Otterspool Park in Liverpool.

The group walked for about an hour and a half, and afterwards we had a coffee and spoke about the things we heard.We spoke about how challenging sometimes it can be to get our ears tuned in to active listening and how nice it was to listen in silence together with others. The Otterspool soundscape featured the sounds of spring birdsong, wind through the leaves and people jogging, all against the backdrop of the very noisy Aigburth Road. Although at some points during the walk you could barely hear the traffic!

I made a soundmap for each person on the walk, mapping out the route, our stopping points and the landscape around it. I also created a list of writing prompts, inspired by some of Hildegard Westerkamp’s writings on soundwalks.