Intangible waters

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

I. Ocean furrows
II. The liquid skin of story
III. Island protecting waves
"What are the living sonic expressions inherited from our ancestors? This question came to me when I read the definition of ‘intangible cultural heritage’ on the UNESCO website. The field recording I chose from the Fisherman’s Wharf in Santa Cruz in the Galapagos Islands, is, in the words of Josué Jaramillo, ‘a unique polyphony, where work, culture and wildlife converge in an imperfect but very human harmony’. Listening to the recording, I was mesmerised by the sound of the ‘knives sliding on whetstones’, as well as the daily conversations and the flowing of sounds into each other. Watching videos of the wharf online, I was transfixed by the seabirds, iguanas and sea lions that waited patiently for -or simply took- their fair share of the fish meat.
"Researching Ecuadorian folk music, I came across ‘Taita Quishpe’, a song about the love felt by an indigenous agriculturalist towards their ‘chakrita’, the small plot of land which provides for them and soothes them like the sound of the ‘rondador’, the national instrument of Ecuador. I thought of the ocean around the Galapagos Islands as one giant chakrita, and the very particular relationship islanders have with the sea, its deep and shifting waters.
"This provoked me to explore my own heritage as a British-Greek person. The first thing that came to my mind was the Odyssey, the epic rhapsody of the eponymous hero’s perilous journey of return. Thinking about the waters of heritage and story, I was reminded of the evasive figure of Proteus, the shapeshifting old man of the sea, transforming himself into ‘a lion, a serpent, a leopard, a boar, rushing water, a mighty tree’. I felt that across the ages this is also what stories do.
"The next thing that came to mind was the Met Office’s shipping forecast, that spell-like, reliable, life-saving transmission. This spell led to thinking about other spells, about the fate of ancient traditions that were lost, only to be remade in modern form, such as the animistic traditions of Druidry and its flowing spirit of inspiration, or Awen.
"The soundscape hopefully evokes something of this imaginative journey, taking the original field recording itself as a point of departure. My idea has been to dissolve boundaries, to express the movement of waves and to allow for the invisible radiophonic liquidity that we are all part of to emerge; it seems to me that both through tangible and intangible waters, all our different islands might be connected, and perhaps that sonic currents of our heritage are always travelling to shores much further than we think."
Sounds:
Ocean furrows:
• Extracts from the original field recording (unedited and edited)
• Sample from ‘Taita Quishpe’, Gloria Haro y conjunto folklorico, from ‘El Canto dela Raza’, 1969
The liquid skin of story:
• Extract from ‘The Odyssey’, Rhapsody 4, Homer, read in Modern Greek by Veroniki Krikoni and in Spanish by Christos Siorikis
• Field recording at Parkland Walk, London. Voice: Chris Sakellaridis; harmonium: Öztan Aydin-Corbett; birds, passers-by
Island protecting waves:
• Met Office, Shipping forecast (archive, January 2021), read by Chris Sakellaridis
• Field recording, Spring Equinox Ceremony, Tamesis Order of Bards and Druids Group, Primrose Hill
• Field recording, the River Thames, Rotherhithe Beach
Santa Cruz, Islas Galápagos soundscape reimagined by Chris Sakellaridis.
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This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights.
Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage