Take a pause, take a breath, take a step outdoors: Why we’re celebrating blossom this spring
Here at Digital Voice HQ we’re big fans of blossom season, especially as we’re delivering a lot of work outdoors this springtime, so imagine our delight when a project all about blossom comes along courtesy of our colleagues at the National Trust.
Since early March, the National Trust has been celebrating a Festival of Blossom, encouraging everyone to take a moment to enjoy the outdoors and revel in the simple beauty of the blossom trees. Part of their festival is a series of projects in which children and artists respond to the theme in a creative way. We have been working alongside them, NOVAK and The Great North Museum: Hancock to create an immersive experience which will open to the public in time for the May half-term.
NOVAK, who are a Newcastle-based company specialising in transforming spaces with immersive media design, have created a dawn-til-dusk cycle of a cherry blossom which will be projected inside the Hancock. Accompanying it will be a soundscape that we have created with two of our regular artists, Sound Designer Andy Ludbrook and Writer Susan Mulholland, and a fantastic group of children from Riverside Primary Academy, Gateshead.
The group of children, who nicknamed themselves The Blossoms, explored the areas by Dunston Staithes as well as their own school grounds, and wrote about their experiences of spring and nature via a series of prompts given by Susan.
“The ‘Blossoms’ were a total delight to work with! I tried a series of sensory activities with them and they approached everything with great enthusiasm, resulting in some really profound poetic writing. I can’t wait for them to hear their words alongside the beautiful images.”
- Susan Mulholland
Susan then took all of the children’s writing and created a script, ready for recording their voices. Sound Designer, Andy Ludbrook, then developed a soundscape from their voices and sounds of nature that he’d found. Andy set recorders outside in different places in order to capture a range of sounds at different times of the day to match the gentle flow of the visuals:
“I needed to make an atmosphere that would last twenty minutes and convey the idea of dawn till dusk of all the sounds to do with blossom. I went to Gibside to record in the walled garden. Then near home at Shotley Bridge I recorded several sessions round about dusk which is always a magic time for the way the birds sing and the sense of everything just settling. I set a recorder running before I went to bed so I've got the entire night and the whole of the Dawn chorus with not too much traffic. I wanted the sound of bees buzzing contentedly but the ones I recorded were a bit angry – I managed to find some happier bees for the feeling of calm we were going for!”
- Andy Ludbrook
The combination of the soundscape and visuals is a beautiful, meditative celebration of this very special time of year. And where can you immerse yourself in this experience, we hear you cry?
It opens on 24th May at Great North Museum: Hancock and runs during the regular opening hours until 1 June. Admission to the museum is free of charge (donations gratefully received).
Hope to see you there!
This project was funded by players of the People’s Postcode Lottery.