“He didn’t just take notes of everything, he switched on a tape recorder”
A series of sound pieces exploring the history of Moseley Park and Pool from the 1600s to the present day. Created by sound artist Justin Wiggan, the project is the result of nine months of work, mining the archives and memories of local people and making field recordings in the Park to create five distinct sonic interpretations on a theme.
The project chronicles the impact of industrialisation on a once rural landscape and the lives of those who inhabit it. As the rapidly expanding city of Birmingham encroaches on a medieval manor, the sylvan fragment that is Moseley Park is preserved as an urban oasis, a leisurely retreat and haven for wildlife, yet not immune to the revolution that goes on beyond its gates. Through the medium of sound, Justin recreates the turbulent, touching and occasionally fabricated tales that lie beneath a seemingly virgin landscape, itself a picturesque construct of the Romantic era in garden design.