Terra:form Arts are currency in the process of producing a non-narrative documentary film about Wigan. We are looking for participants to help inform and influence this film, by looking at some of our work examples and responding to a quick questionnaire about Wigan and the surrounding area. These questionnaire responses will help us choose materials to film and include in the final documentary. As well as these questionnaire responses, we are looking for participants to respond to our examples in whatever way they want; this could be through photos, paintings, videos, sketches, voice recordings or even video recordings.
We’re looking for your thoughts and feelings about a variety of topics:
water, industrial/urban landscapes, rural/green spaces, and air quality.
Water
We’ve created a sonic map of Wigan Pier, which you can listen to here.
We’d like you to use this artwork as a jumping off point, to think about water and how it is currently integrated into your local surroundings. You can answer a few water based questions with this Google Form.
Air quality
Below are a couple of audiovisual pieces that were made based off of air quality data from Wigan over the past few years.
These audiovisual pieces are a result of controlling the parameters of a synthesiser with numerical values. These values detail how much air pollution (NO & NO2) were present in Wigan town centre during time periods in 2019. The concept here is to give sound to this invisible and inaudible process. Whilst listening to these, please consider the following;
● What do you think air pollution would sound like?
● How does the audio affect how you consider air pollution?
● What other environmental datasets would you like to hear as sound?
Industrial/ Urban Landscapes
What is missing from the landscapes within our towns and cities? How has previous industrial practice affected our landscapes? Here we will deliver archival photographic material brought to life with animation. We will also deliver soundscape and video content to support and further develop this theme.
This short video has been created so as to showcase the types of audible and visual textures that we imagine will be present within our final film. Here, you can get a glimpse into our efforts to focus on small details of day to day urban life whilst emphasising their beauty, and complimenting them with more natural sounds that create a subtle contrast between that which is man made and that which is not. Within the video, we’ve attempted to find visual elements that represent intersections between the urban and the natural, and we hope to be able to continue exploring these intersections through the making of this film by utilising your personal insights about the areas that are meaningful to you. As such, we’d like you to think about examples within your own local landscapes where nature intersects with urban life and question how you might create your own response to this theme.
Watch the video above then fill in this questionnaire.
Rural/Green Spaces
This small collection of photos has been arranged to provoke responses about the natural landscapes that surround us whilst often simultaneously encompassing our towns, cities and villages. We’d like you to question how have humans have had an affect on these landscapes, how we’ve sought to navigate them by road and rail, and how areas that might be near to you
have changed in the time that you have known them. We’d also like you to think about the purposes that these places have for you and for others; how do they occupy a space in our lives, and how do we use them for our personal benefit?
Take a look at the photographs then fill in this questionnaire.
Get Creative
You can submit responses in other ways too - we would like to invite you to respond to any of the artworks and prompts we have provided in whatever medium you feel fit (this could be anything from painting, sculpture, poetry, musical performance), and send it to terraform365@gmail.com with a brief description of your response.
Content from this project will be posted on both the Wigan STEAM website and Terra:Form Arts instagram page. We will also be exhibiting the outcome in the future - this has been postponed due to Covid-19.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Terra:form Arts
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