For our fifth episode of the Fermynwoods Podcast, we focus on our Alternative Provision programme with students from The CE Academy. Artist and musician Rebecca Lee has created her sound piece You Can Hear The Wind entirely from recordings made by students.
For her workshops during the 2018-2019 academic year, Rebecca brought a variety of microphones, including those that could pick up the vibrations of our rural metal fences and those that could be lowered into nearby streams or withstand an onslaught of condiments. Students first experimented with creating these strange noises, then used software to loop and layer the noises into music.
When turning these recordings into a cohesive sound work, Rebecca’s main concern was to represent the young people in a way that allowed them to speak for themselves, without dressing it up or down. She used only their recordings as source material and edited them together with the same DJ mixing software they used. The result is a sound piece which represents the experience of one of our workshops, complete with imperfect recording technique, gleeful creative experimentation, swearing, and the peaceful environment surrounding Sudborough Green Lodge.
Subscribe to the Fermynwoods Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
All Images – Rebecca Lee working with students from The CE Academy, Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, 2018-2019
Rebecca Lee is a musician and sound practitioner producing performance, sound works, projects and publications with a particular focus on music and narrative and collaboration. She often works long term in relation to specific site and places, draws on written forms and uses improvisation, scores and DIY approaches to combine period and contemporary materials and processes. She moves between public off-site or project-based work, traditional arts venues and DIY music spaces. Rebecca performs as Bredbeddle, makes improvised music with Marie Thompson and is part of Primary Music group.
Rebecca also delivers talks and workshops across both arts and music sectors, co-leads Youth Landscapers Collective, a youth arts project with the National Forest and Timber Festival and runs Tell Me Something I Don’t Know a long-running community talk series at Primary. You can hear more of her work at her SoundCloud.
The CE Academy provides alternative education for young people who are permanently excluded from school, dual registered and for school age mothers.