Sonic Engagement: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Community Engaged Audio Practice - Paperback

by Sarah Woodland (Editor), Wolfgang Vachon (Editor)

Sonic Engagement examines the relationship between community engaged participatory arts and the cultural turn towards audio, sound, and listening that has been referred to as the 'sonic turn'.

This edited collection investigates the use of sound and audio production in community engaged participatory arts practice and research. The popularity of podcast and audio drama, combined with the accessibility and portability of affordable field recording and home studio equipment, makes audio a compelling mode of participatory creative practice. This book maps existing projects occurring globally through a series of case study chapters that exemplify community engaged creative audio practice. The studies focus on audio and sound-based arts practices that are undertaken by artists and arts-led researchers in collaboration with (and from within) communities and groups. These practices include--applied audio drama, community engaged podcasting, sound and verbatim theatre, participatory sound art, community-led acoustic ecology, sound and media walks, digital storytelling, oral history and reminiscence, and radio drama in health and community development. The contributors interrogate the practical, political, and aesthetic potentialities of using sound and audio in community engaged arts practice, as well as its tensions and possibilities as an arts-led participatory research methodology.

This book provides the first extensive analysis of what sound and audio brings to participatory, interdisciplinary, arts-led approaches, representing a vital resource for community arts, performance practice, and research in the digital age.

Author Biography

Sarah Woodland is a researcher, practitioner, and educator in applied theatre and participatory arts, with a particular focus on engaging with communities and groups from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, and those with experience of the criminal justice system. She is Dean's Research Fellow at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Wolfgang Vachon has been creating with and supporting children and youth through theatre and other arts practices for three decades. His work has primarily been with people who are street involved, homeless, 2SLGBTQ+, survivors of trauma, and those living in state care. Wolfgang teaches Child and Youth Care at Humber College in Toronto, Canada.