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‘Immersive Sound Shapes’ |  at FABRICA, Brighton

October 2025

This October I will be in Residency at FABRICA Brighton.

Over five days, I will be developing immersive sculptural setups for my spatial sound composition, ‘Songs of Borderlands’ to explore sound, data and social listening as tools for human connection and social transformation.

‘Songs of Borderlands’ began during my recent residency at The Rose Hill, Brighton, where we developed a sonic composition using data and material gathered along human migration routes. The work focuses particularly on lives lost at sea in small boat crossings — a global crisis in which many are lost without trace, ceremony, or identity.

Through sound, space and collective listening, we will be exploring how we might attend to experiences of grief and loss together, and how art can offer forms of care, resistance and recognition, bearing witness in the face of vulnerability.

The installation is conceived as a sonic memorial: a way of listening to the often-invisible systems of migration, honouring those who have died, and calling for safer routes for those seeking safety.

At Fabrica, I plan to extend this work into the sculptural realm, creating three-dimensional sonic forms that immerse the listener. Visitors are invited to engage with these physical sound objects, to experience how sound can be felt as much as heard, and to reflect on the layered themes of collective grief, shadow, and resilience.

As part of the residency I will be asking:

How does sound travel within and occupy space?

How does shape and form affect the sensory and felt experience of immersive sound?

How can the practice of social listening activate acts of loving resistance and empathetic trajectories for the most vulnerable in society?

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Events:

By invitation — Wednesday 15 October
A focused session for individuals with lived experience of migration or forced displacement. Please email to enquire.

Public drop-in — Thursday 16 October
The work-in-progress installation will be open to visitors. Free entry (no booking required)

 
‘Holding The Human’ – Short Live Performance + Discussion | £5

As part of the residency, we are inviting a small audience into the gallery to experience the installation, alongside a short, live-sound performance and discussion.

Through sound, space and collective listening, I am exploring how we might attend to experiences of grief and loss together, and how art can offer forms of care, resistance and recognition, bearing witness in the face of vulnerability.

Book Here

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The collaborative residency is as part of my current ACE ‘Develop Your Creative Practice’ period of development, investigating immersive experience, embodied and spatial listening and notions of the ‘collective shadow’.

 
This residency is funded by Arts Council ‘Develop Your Creative Practice’ grant

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Credits:

Helen Dewhurst artist, sound, concept
Jack Kingslake sound production, musician
Baran Elitez data

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