What Does Home Mean To You? “Our Home” was this year’s global theme for Refugee Week, held from June 17th to 23rd. Through my involvement with a local book festival, I had the honour of participating in Hello Derby: A Festival of Welcome, hosted by Derby Museums. At our stand, we posed a simple yet profound question to attendees: “What does home mean to you?” Using postcards as their canvas, residents, refugees, organisations, friends, and creatives from across Derbyshire poured their thoughts and emotions onto paper. Over 100 postcards were filled with heartfelt reflections, stories, drawings, and scribbles—each offering a unique and personal perspective on what “home” means. I was…

I have been delivering community soundscape workshops for several years. These can take on different forms, but for the most part they’re experimental and encourage participants to think about / explore the sound of their community and ‘home’ I ran a workshop recently where members of the Lincolnshire community were invited to Lincoln Arts Centre to attend a soundscape workshop with myself and colleague Dylan Roys (lecturer in radio and sound). We began the workshop with a discussion about sound, place, community and home and what our community sounded like to use. This encouraged a really thoughtful and engaging discussion around how Lincolnshire has a very natural sound associated with…

The Big Draw is the world’s largest drawing festival. The Festival is made up of a collection of thousands of creative events, activities, and workshops across the globe run by organisations big and small; from individuals to entire cities! As part of the Big Draw myself and colleague Sam Shipley delivered sound art workshops to 30 schoolchildren and young adults at the University of Lincoln. The participants got to learn about sound art, experimental sound and soundscapes, as well as contribute towards a radio broadcast for local station Siren Radio. I planned, delivered and edited the audio alongside Sam, and it was great to be a part of such a…

I was successful in winning an Open Call Bid for the Being Human Festival in October 2023. Alongside colleague Sam Shipley (Radio & Sound Lecturer) we planned, delivered and produced a series of radio workshops with Double Impact Academy in Lincolnshire. The broadcast was aired on Siren Radio towards the end of 2023, and the workshops were a part of the fantastic Being Human Festival. Double Impact Academy are a Drug and Alcohol Recovery Service, that through collaboration with their service users, have developed an approach based around the principle of connection – connecting people to their hopes and personal strengths, to an effective support network, and to a range of opportunities…

In June 2023, I went along to the From Silence into Song event at Lincoln Art Centre, to record, interview and edit together a special one off broadcast for Siren Radio. The live performance is built on a series of soundscapes from nature to members of a choir of cancer survivors who have developed new voices after the removal of their voice boxes. Music mixed by Lincoln Sound and Music Production students Conrad Hendrickson, Bartek Henclik & Joe Purves, alongside audio recordings of the night recorded by radio & sound student Caitlin Robinson, interviews with Mette Hjort, Philip Clemo, Ben Anderson and members of the Shout at Cancer Choir carried…