A new project featuring sound-art made by young people from Whitehawk, Manor Farm and Bristol Estate will be featured in Brighton Festival this May.
The free project will see teenagers between the ages of 11 and 17 use synthesisers and electronic instruments to explore storytelling with sound.
The young people will also have a chance to interact with a boser, a tool which uses sound to detect bedrock, which is the same technology used to discover the prehistoric settlement at Whitehawk Hill in the 1920s.
The workshops will include field recording sessions with portable audio recorders, and a visit to Brighton Museum to capture the sound of flint stone age tools.
Led by a professional sound artist, the children will also have the chance to have their work played through eight speakers in a gallery at the city’s renowned culture festival.
Sound artist, Simon James, who grew up in Whitehawk, said: “Music and art are just brilliant for mental health and well-being and it soothes the soul.
“It’s a lovely, joyful thing to participate in – being able to express yourself and be heard and seen for people to do that.
“The creative and media industry is dominated by middle and upper class people in privileged positions and it means that stories from areas like Whitehawk rarely get told.
“The exhibition space itself should be a space to have those kinds of conversations about what it means to grow up in Whitehawk, and how that affects the rest of your life and can impact it.
“It’s easy to look at the negative stuff, but I think maybe it’s time to reframe that and see the power and energy people from those areas have, if they’re given the chance to use it.
“In the very first workshop, I will set up a table of strange electronic instruments, with lots of dials and knobs and buttons to push and they will just make a noise for two hours.
“All of that will be recorded, all of that could end up in the final exhibition space.”
The eight-week project will take place from Tuesday, 20 February between 5:30pm to 7:30pm at the Crew Club in Whitehawk.
To register a young person to participate, email podcast@classdivide.co.uk
