walk your ears!

(June-August 2007)

THE PODCAST
You can download the PODCAST for the Orange Route here, and for the Purple Route here. (These links will take you straight to your mp3 player.) Explore the wye! map here.

Background
walk your ears! links children from Plymouth’s Tamerton Vale Primary School with children from Shaugh Prior Primary School (within Dartmoor National Park) through an exploration of historic and contemporary connections between the city and the moor. It builds on work already undertaken with these two schools in AHA’s Granite Shadows project in 2006.

In the infamous wet summer of 2007, we took groups from these schools out onto Dartmoor, near Burrator, using eyes as much as ears to look at and listen to the landscape around them. Sound artist Martin Prothero and DNP Education Officer Willem Montagne, along with teachers, parents, and other hangers-on from AHA, took their groups of around 30 children on two different walks, starting at the same place, but exploring different territories and landscapes near Burrator Reservoir. The children drew, listened, and recorded sounds, and took GPS readings along the way.

Working with Dartmoor cartographer Hanno Koch, we developed a map charting the two sound walks, 10,000 of which have been distributed around Dartmoor and Devon. Look for them in libraries, TICs, Visitor Centres, and loads of other places. They are free, and contain two relatively easy walks designed for families. You can just go on the walk using your legs and your ears, or you can also download a podcast to your iPod or other MP3 player and take it along to hear the children's sound recordings in situ.

You can visit an online version of the map here (please note that it's still in the testing phase!). Also visit the galleries to see the children's drawings and to listen to some additional recordings that were not included in the map (coming soon).

We'd like to thank the Ragdoll Foundation and other funders (Arts Council England, Dartmoor National Park, and the City of Plymouth) for their support of this project.

Participants
Jennie Hayes led the project for Aune Head Arts
The schools were Tamerton Vale Primary School (Year 5) and Shaugh Prior Village School
The Education Officer from Dartmoor National Park is Willem Montagne
The Cartographer was Hano Koch, from Latitude Cartography
The sound artist was Martin Prothero; sound artist and bird expert Tony Whitehead from the RPSB also helped out.