Sound Map
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Sound Map for a Changing Landscape is a socially engaged art project.

We invite communities to share sounds, images, and narratives around changing land via this digital archive interface, and public art installations.

Using this digital platform, participants are able to pin different locations, uploading sound recordings and imagery related to that place. These contributions can be interviews, original writings, memories, or field recordings. Images could represent the place itself, memories related to it, and/or any contributors and participants. These artifacts will create a digital archive of the participants’ relationship to the changing landscape.

An installation space has been created in and around a 20-foot shipping container

Converting this piece of infrastructure into a gallery and native plant habitat with green roof and planters, the installation invites viewers to linger and listen. Sound from the digital archive will be broadcast into the container, as well as out from speakers inside the planters. Participants and viewers are invited to listen deeply, to engage with the world through the empathetic process of listening.

This project draws from the traditions of community-based knowledge and participatory mapping, “in which mapping efforts draw on the knowledge and experience of people who are generally not conceived of as cartographers” (E. Iralu, 2021). Both the wealth of experience in everyday life and the wealth of experience in the more than human world are often overlooked sites of knowledge. We hope that by focusing on them as subjects of close listening, we can open ourselves to new ways of relating to each other and the world.

Financial and Material Supporters

Barry Art MuseumCHS ContainersCarrol TruckingLady Fern’s Native PlantsSouthern Branch NurseryVirginia Arts CommissionNational Endowment for the ArtsODU Office of Academic AffairsODU M-Collective

Acknowledgements / Credits

  • Studio Assistants:
    Theo Mayberry, Dylan Parrish, Daniel Penzaloa-Bueno, Anna Syrgayaki, Maddie Sznoluch, Kyle Res
  • Friends and Neighbors:
    Tom Dunleavy, Randy Polladian, Wes Moore, Nicole Moore, Jason Edelman, Jordan Crawford, Dan Barshis, Stephanie Peglow, Madeline Alden, Collum Sutherland, Molly LaRocco, Jason Demeter, Kelsey Velo, Chantal Thomas
  • Logistics and Donations:
    Edward Shea, Andrew Smith
  • Graphic Designer:
    Tim Delrosario
  • Web Developer:
    Patrick Hill
  • Technical Assistance:
    Will Truran, Anthony D’Angelo, John Roth, John Little, Ed Snodgrass

About the Artists

  • Brendan Baylor

    Brendan Baylor, lead artist and builder grew up in the Pacific Northwest, taking in the sights and sounds of the wetlands next to his childhood home. As an interdisciplinary artist, his work explores landscapes as social, historical, and ecological spaces. His work has been shown nationally and internationally, including the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chrysler Museum of Art, and the CONA Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia. His artistic and curatorial work has been covered by NPR, the New York Times, and the Guardian. Brendan is currently Associate Professor of Art (Print Media) at Old Dominion University. He lives and works in Norfolk, VA at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. More of his work can be seen at www.brendanbaylor.art and www.hothouseartproject.com

  • Kelly Morse

    Kelly Morse is a landscape designer, award-winning author, and founder of 70|30 Design Studio. She is a Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellow and a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow, as well as a Scotty Scholar recipient from the Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council. At 70|30 Design Studio Kelly combines art and ecology to create landscape designs that celebrate the unique nature of the Mid-Atlantic coastal plain. Her favorite part of living in Norfolk, VA is observing birds on the brackish rivers that wind through the city. More of her work can be seen at www.7030design.com and www.hothouseartproject.com

Brendan Baylor