The memory of water

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"Thinking of how tourism is now a major industry for Madeira I started with the now, the field recording submitted to the Sonic Heritage project. Already rhythmic in the sound of the footsteps I looped parts of this, and brought it back in at the end. I really liked the image the recording brought up of walking the narrow Levada (waterways) and the muffled greetings and people saying 'sorry' and 'your welcome' as they squeeze past each other. The World Heritage Site is promoted today for its wildlife, tranquillity and calm, so I also closed the loop with brought in birdsong recorded in the Laurisilva (the World Heritage Site in which the field recording was made)
"In the past however, for all the lush and ancient forest, this was essentially part of an industrial landscape, with the Levadas (waterways) carved and built through the rock to facilitate the sugar industry that was developed from the mid 15th century onwards. This industry was also the model for the plantation slavery across the Caribbean, Brazil and the United States that followed.
"In the official submission to UNESCO to have the Levadas Designated (submitted 2017, nomination withdrawn 2024) there's no mention of enslaved people being brought to the island for labour: Guanche people from the Canary Islands and Berber people from North Africa at first, then people from West Africa. Given that the carving and construction of the Levadas was hard, dangerous and even deadly work it seems likely it was these people who built them, and not 'heroic' or 'stoic' settlers and farmers as the official submission (and other, often tourist oriented, sources) suggest.
"I therefore wanted to make a piece in which the water running through the Levada holds this memory - inspired by the quiet dripping sound that can just be heard at one point in the original recording, I added my own field recordings of water running through a channel and of (archaeological) excavation, plus a low rustling vegetal sound for the dense forest. At several points Gnawa music recorded in Morrocco seeps through, I don't know if this is temporally or geographically correct for some of the first people brought, enslaved, to Madeira, but I wanted a way to surface this history - and to bring in an aural reminder of hidden histories that lie behind official, 'authorised' heritage discourse."
References:
Tentative Lists: Levadas of Madeira Island, https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6230
UNESCO 46 COM (WHC/24/46.COM/17), Decision: 46 COM 8B.23, https://whc.unesco.org/document/207010
Cristiana Bastos. 2025. Sweetness and exile: Madeiran sugar
connections in motion. History and Technology. DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2025.2455245
Sidney M. Greenfield. 1977. Madeira and the beginnings of New World sugar cane cultivation and plantation slavery: a study in institution building. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 292: 536-552. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1977.tb47771.x
Roberto Knight Cavaleiro. 2022. Slaves, sugar and rampant capitalism - Madeira 1440 to 1540, The Portugal News (17 February)
Other recordings used:
Various field recordings of my own
Birdsong in the Laurisilva: recordings by Sacha Julien (Creative Commons, Freesound)
Men chanting and playing "Qrageb"Tamegroute, Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco by ikbenraar (Creative Commons, Freesound)
Laurisilva of Madeira reimagined by Lara Band.
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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