Orbits + Circles of Wakefield
Commissioned by the INDEX Festival, WakefieldIs the story of Wakefield and how through sound, we might be able to recognise the shape of it as a means to change it.
Originally created to collect stories surrounding the Wakefield City Bus, the project expanded to include the larger ideas of what 'journeying' and 'waiting' on transport could be about in the most magnified sense of the terms: "Journeying" went from bus travel to the myth of Wakefield's journey. "Waiting" grew from acting as such at a bus stop to considering the privileges of not needing to wait to tell a story, or to own a story at all.
Statistics are often raised about to the subject of Wakefield, (in particular, its high unemployment rate) and so mapping Wakefield's story/mythology began with examining Wakefield's State of the District, and how this document shapes Wakefield's story through socio-economic qualifiers. Google Maps was used to map the locations of the stories told by the Wakefield community and shapes began to appear.
Through experiencing the sounds and stories of this work, we begin to see the myths and stories of Wakefield take a visual shape in our minds: We may begin to wonder how we need to alter the shape of the story, and what we may want to change to alter it.The recordings were left unaffected. There are no edits from clicking the recorder on and off. The visuals made of places from places mentioned or muses from the artist explode into lines, into possible trajectories for the new stories to shape.