An immersive audio and video project of sounds of the sea is on show at the Manx Museum.
‘Hear Us: Sounds of the Sea’ was created as part of a project bringing together artists, musicians, researchers and members of the public to make underwater recordings around the Isle of Man.
Led by Dr Alan Dunn of Leeds Beckett University and Dr Helen Tookey of Liverpool John Moores University, the project team has been visiting the Isle of Man since 2021.
It includes a former Shell sea captain, art students, researchers focused on plastic pollution and one of the world’s leading sound recordists, Chris Watson. Chis is known for his award-winning work with David Attenborough.
Sounds of The Sea
The project is inspired by the 1950s’ short stories of Wirral-born writer Malcolm Lowry.
Written while Lowry was living in a hand-built shack on the shoreline at Dollarton near Vancouver in Canada, Lowry drew on his own memories of visiting the Isle of Man as a boy on family holidays, and also on the stories of a Manx boat-builder, Jimmy Craige, who lived nearby at Dollarton.
Alan Dunn and Helen Tookey explain: “In the 1950s, Lowry was increasingly concerned about the effects of human-driven pollution and industrial development on the environment.
In his stories, he uses the Isle of Man as a symbol of the natural world, and of ways of living that are more in harmony with the natural environment.
He’s living by the sea and he’s writing about the sea, so we thought it would be interesting to use his ideas as a springboard, to bring a group of artists and writers and sound recordists to the Isle of Man and start listening to what we could hear under the surface of the water.”
Hear Us: Sounds of the Sea can be found in the Natural History Corridor at the Manx Museum, open daily from 9:30am to 4:30pm.
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