East Lancs Antenna
2024
A project with Super Slow Way along the Leeds Liverpool Canal.
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In a continuation of his recent residency with This is Nelson, artist Rob St John will be working with communities from Huncoat to Nelson over the summer to create a audio portrait of the stretch exploring how people relate to the canal, and its connections to ongoing social and environmental shifts in the area.
Spending time along this Super Slow Way stretch of canal, Rob will invite people to join him for a variety of workshops including a Listening Book Club, Dawn Chorus Walks and Canal Transmissions which will be run from our pop up space in Lomeshaye Park and the Exbury Egg now installed at Finsley Gate Wharf in Burnley.
The final content will be shared as part of the Drift broadcast weekend on a moveable barge radio station (August 31st) and a sound installation in Spring 2025.
The first of a series of activities and workshops with one of our audio artists in residence Rob St John. In these two sessions, participants will listen together. Together we’ll listen to birds, bats and underwater life using a variety of unusual recording devices. On a short walk from the meeting place, we’ll talk about the value of listening, and what it can tell us about the places we live in.
Download the MERLIN bird identification app in advance if possible.
Saturday 13th July, 5am. Lomeshaye Park, Nelson – Dawn Chorus Walk (breakfast included)
Saturday 13th July, 8pm. Finsley Gate Wharf, Burnley, BB11 2FG – Dusk Chorus Walk (supper included)
The second in a series of activities and workshops with one of our audio artists in residence Rob St John. We’re gathering sounds and stories from the towpath, and we need your help! Drop-in to listen to underwater sounds from beneath the canal’s surface, explore our sound library, and lend your voice and perspective to a soundscape to be broadcast from the Super Slow Way radio barge, and in a sound installation in 2025.
Saturday 17th August, 11am-3pm. Lomeshaye Park, Nelson
Sunday 18th August, 11am-3pm, The Exbury Egg, Finsley Gate Wharf, Burnley, BB11 2FG
Saturday 31st August – First sound transmissions at DRIFT, onboard the Bill Hunt, Eanam Wharf, Blackburn
The third in a series of activities and workshops with one of our audio artists in residence Rob St John. Together we’ll read and discuss Quantum Listening by Pauline Oliveros. This short book suggests ways in which listening to the sounds of our everyday lives can tell about place, ecology, politics and each other. We’d love to hear your voice in relating how this can be applied to our corner of East Lancashire.
Copies are available from The Exbury Egg and Lomeshaye Pop Up libraries, or you can read it on a PDF here at https://www.are.na/block/22562804, although you do not need to have fully read the book to attend: just come with ideas and open ears!
Sunday 15th September, 12-2pm. Lomeshaye Park, Nelson
Sunday 15th September, 3-5pm, The Exbury Egg, Finsley Gate Wharf, Burnley, BB11 2FG
Participants at all sessions will receive a limited-edition East Lancs Antenna riso print.
Images by Jack Bolton.
