Campus Soundwalks
& Student Mental Health
This project investigates the connections between sound, university green spaces, and student mental health through immersive, guided soundwalks. University students are invited to actively engage with the sonic ecologies of familiar outdoor campus spaces, fostering mindfulness and connection to nature. The soundwalks treat sound as a relational medium that (re)orients perception from passive hearing to active listening, inviting participants to reflect on the dimensions of listening and place, along with their kinship with other-than-humans.
“One type of sound walk includes the method of walking in silence, while paying close attention to ambient sounds. . . . Sound walks are a practice of active listening and present an embodied, tactile, and auditory understanding of place. In these instances of sound walks, recording devices are not used.
Other types of sound walks combine other methods with listening, such as recording devices, mapping practices, or reflective journaling to capture the experience and understanding of sound to a place.” (pp. 35–36)
—Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman, “A Transmaterial Approach to Walking Methodologies: Embodiment, Affect, and a Sonic Art Performance,” Body & Society 23, no. 4 (2017): 27–58, https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X17732626.
Free downloadable guides
Listening with place: A guide to campus soundwalks (8-page zine) (pdf)
Sensing Across Transcorporeal Be(com)ings: A trans* listening protocol (8-page zine) (pdf)
Philosopher’s Walk field guide (pdf) (in-progress)
This project is made possible through generous support from SoundLife Scarborugh
