Overland, Undersea/
Pale Blue Dot Collective

Commissioner Ramsgate Festival of Sound
Year 2021
10.33m

This piece was commissioned by the Ramsgate Festival of Sound 2021, and developed for high quality speakers or headphones.

This sound piece is created from a collection of field recordings taken in Thanet, Kent. We have focussed on the two places which we spend the most time - in Walpole Bay, where we live, and in Minster by our studio. 

Our life by the coastline has helped us to reconnect with the inhabitants of the natural world that we spend so much time thinking about. As we look out our window at the water, we are witnesses to the ebb and flow of the daily tides, the same tides which have risen and fallen over millions of years, helping to shape the geological structures and the life forms which exist in and around them. The fragility of these life forms is so apparent as they swim, fly and nest in and around our pollution. We keep coming back to this quote from Rebecca Solnit:

‘We need a new word for that feeling for nature that is love and wonder mingled with dread and sorrow, for when we see those things that are still beautiful, still powerful, but struggling under the burden of our mistakes.’ Our climate change turning point is right here, right now by Rebecca Solnit, 2021.

As we face the overwhelming and complex nature of the climate crisis, it is an important reminder to do everything that we can as individuals to improve the lives of the creatures that we share our local environment with, alongside trying to undo the damage we have collectively done to the wider ecological system.

This sound piece includes the recordings of bats, birds and shellfish.