Dudley Creates - Sound Aloud

As part of Dudley Creates artist Gavin Rogers worked alongside women and LGBTQIA+ people living in and around Dudley to finding their voices together and discover the possibilities of Netherton Tunnel - a 3 km Victorian tunnel that passes along the canal and under Dudley.

Part 1: Empathy Mapping

Working in collaboration with artist and UX researcher Emily Warner they conducted a number of visits between April and June 2022 and created an emotional-physical mapping of the tunnel which was later explored and revisited by participants.

Part 2: Conversations 

On their collective adventures into the tunnel they created a sound scape which was over 2 hours long containing conversations, spontaneous noises, stories, myths and a lot of laughter. 

An edited version of the conversations are available here (Gavin suggests they sound best with headphones as it recreates the sound within the tunnel itself).

Part 3: Sound works

Calling the canal sirens, past, present and future. In a tunnel deep beneath the earth, a place built by man, for power, for money, for goods, for industry, for the empire. Yet over time the water has taken reign over this mysterious 2.7km tunnel, the stalactites and stalagmites have grown, and sirens of the water to allow our bodies to be part of this earth, this space, and feel our freedom.

Listen to the wonderful sound pieces here.

Part 4: Feedback 

This project has been so exciting to work on. Coming together as LGBTQIA+, POC and women – we created a safe space to make sounds together in an environment which was not built for us, it was built for men, for industry in the 1800s. 

The project was commissioned by the Dudley Creates associate producers on behalf of Creative Black Country and funded by Arts Council England.

Thank you to all of the participants that took part and made such beautiful sounds and music.