Sediments is an experimental, participatory sound walk that inverts the traditional model of passive listening, transforming it into a collaborative exercise in sonic sedimentation. Inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ Quantum Listening, R. Murray Schafer’s Soundscape Ecology, and Robert Smithson’s Non-Sites, the project displaces recorded sound through space and time, layering traces of past environments into new ones.

The process unfolds across multiple stations. At Station 1, a manifesto is read aloud and recorded by all participants. As the group moves from site to site, one participant plays back the previous station’s recording through a centrally placed Bluetooth speaker while others record the evolving sonic landscape. With each iteration, new environmental and human traces accumulate, eroding and altering the original soundscape.

This walk is not about capturing a static moment, but about forecasting, attuning, and engaging in an act of deep listening. By shifting focus away from the visual and toward the act of listening itself, Sediments transforms sound into a living archive of movement, memory, and sonic erosion. The final playback reveals an auditory palimpsest—where the original voice has been absorbed into a layered sonic geography.

This experience invites participants not just to listen, but to actively shape and anticipate how sound mutates across space, offering a new form of agency in sound-based ecological practice.

Genesis

Sediments evolved from an earlier project, Disembodied (2021), which explored how sound resonates within empty or transitional architectural spaces. Whereas Disembodied captured acoustic reflections in stillness, Sediments moved the practice outward—into open environments, walking routes, and participatory structures. It retained a focus on sonic presence and absence but reframed the listener as an active co-author of the soundscape. The idea of sound as residue—acoustic sediment—became the project’s core.

“… gave voice back to the visitors after they had already physically moved on. This is what absence sounds like.”

Glissando Magazine

"Claps or whistles of the more creative participants were transformed into sounds resembling the plucking of prepared piano strings. They created a reverberation that lingered long after the movement had stopped—a kind of trace of human existence."

Ruch Muzyczny

Equinoks Festival (2023 - ongoing)

Interdisciplinary Arts Platform

Equinoks is a cross-disciplinary, artist-led project that brings together sound, performance, and visual art in response to overlooked spaces, transitional sites, and the changing urban landscape of Luton. Emerging from the experimental AVXLuton initiative (2018–2022), Equinoks launched as a biannual pop-up festival in 2023 and has since grown into a wider programme of public engagement, sound-based commissions, and heritage-based artistic intervention.

Equinoks I – St Mary’s Church, Luton (Sept 2023)

The inaugural Equinoks event took place inside the historical interiors of St Mary’s Church, on the day of the Autumnal Equinox. It featured a powerful lineup of international free improvisers, members of the mopomoso community, experimental musicians, dancers, ceramicists, photographers and filmmakers. The multidisciplinary format layered acoustic performance, moving image, and visual artwork in an intimate, resonant space.

Geolocated Sounds (Spring 2024)

In March 2024, a new strand of Equinoks invited local and international artists to respond to field recordings captured around Luton, using them as a starting point for collaborative "stem" compositions. These site-specific tracks—developed from seed material created by Jakub Rokita—were only accessible by physically visiting the places they referenced. QR posters were installed at each location, creating a temporary public listening trail that merged sound, place, and memory.

Equinoks II – Hat House Basement (Sept 2024)

As part of Heritage Open Days 2024, Equinoks returned to Luton with an expanded programme at Hat House Basement, supported by The Culture Trust, Luton Rising, Arts Council England, and others. The event featured new work by artists Anna Fairchild, Susan Coussens, Claire Davies, Faye Munroe and Jakub Rokita, alongside live performances by Paul Jolly, Anak and other Luton-based musicians.

This evolving project celebrates collaboration across borders and disciplines while rooting itself in the sonic and architectural textures of Luton. Equinoks continues to expand as a site-sensitive platform for improvised and participatory work, with future editions currently in development.

Acoustic Survey Art Lab was a self-initiated residency project running from 2024 to 2025 at Hat House, exploring how sound can capture and archive the layered histories of spaces in transition. Working across civic, industrial, and heritage sites, the project combined field recording, spatial listening, and improvisation to build a sonic portrait of overlooked environments. Using portable, often DIY equipment, I recorded over 100 hours of material—capturing footsteps in vacant stairwells, the hum of ventilation in disused factories, and the acoustic fingerprints of buildings on the edge of erasure. The residency served both as a method of deep engagement with place and as a platform for artistic development, generating a rich archive for future composition, installation, and public-facing work. This residency was made possible by kind support of Culture Trust Luton.

Genesis

The genesis of Acoustic Survey Art Lab can be traced to a series of informal recordings and experimental sessions carried out between 2020 and 2023 at venues including the University of Bedfordshire venues, the Hat Factory basement, The Bear Club, and St Mary’s Church in Luton. Alongside these, recordings were made in underpasses, alleyways, and parks - spaces often overlooked in both civic planning and cultural programming. These early tests revealed how each site, regardless of prestige or formality, carries its own acoustic identity and social memory. They shaped my sensitivity to how sound behaves in heritage environments, not as a neutral reflection, but as an active force - resonating with the architecture, absorbing traces of human presence, and suggesting new ways of engaging with place through listening.

One of the first encounters with acoustics of former hat factories was at Hat House basement in March 2022 which later became a site for multidisciplinary art pop-ups.

A telematic playground for experimental sound and image — built in Luton, active through lockdowns.

AVXLuton was a live telematic art incubator and cross-disciplinary creative platform based in Luton, UK. Active between 2019 and 2022, it provided an experimental space for artists to collaborate across sound, video, and digital media—often using DIY and mobile-based tools to lower barriers to participation.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, AVXLuton became a vital space for peer connection, creativity, and co-production. It hosted a series of online audiovisual showcases and workshops streamed via social media, with an emphasis on creative risk and pushing the boundaries of remote collaboration. The project enabled Luton-based artists to co-create experimental works for international initiatives such as the VideoFenster video art festival, and to explore new practices outside their core disciplines.

Though no longer active, AVXLuton laid the groundwork for later initiatives like Equinoks, and remains a touchstone for participatory, interdisciplinary work in the region.