Talking Trees / 树说/述说 an audio walk that combines notions of language, landscape and soundscapes
Talking Trees / 树说/述说 is a collaborative research project that provides students from the University of Nottingham (UoN) and other UK HE institutions with the opportunity to ‘Journey to the East’ without travelling to the country.
Professor Michael Pinchbeck and national colleagues have created ‘Talking Trees an audio walk that combines notions of language, landscape and soundscapes to explore migration and ask questions about how and where we belong.’
Project History
Talking Trees / 树说/述说 is an immersive arboretum of stories to be listened to at trees by downloading tracks via QR codes. The immersive archive project is currently installed at the University of Nottingham and we have plans to install similar audio walks at the University of Nottingham Ningbo and Manchester Met. The stories explore notions of home, roots/routes and how trees grow over time as a metaphor for belonging. A fictional narrative drawn from archival research and images explores the journey the trees might have taken, how they might be talking to each other and what they might say. The fictional narrative frames the interviews and forms an audio walk between trees for visitors to follow. This immersive audio experience has been designed with Leicester-based sound artist, Chris Cousin.
Talking Trees / 树说/述说 is a collaborative research project that provides students from the University of Nottingham (UoN) and other UK HE institutions with the opportunity to ‘Journey to the East’ without travelling to the country.
It was devised in collaboration between Dr Lan Lo, Associate Professor in Chinese Language and Society from the UoN and Dr Michael Pinchbeck, Professor of Theatre (MMU), during the Covid-19 pandemic as an alternative to study placement for students taking Chinese languages on university degree programmes.
It was part of a package of measures designed to address these students’ language and cultural study needs in the context of lockdown and restrictions on international travel including to China. It is located within research on student migration and chimes with previous projects delivered either separately or in partnership by Lan Lo and Michael Pinchbeck around notions of home, migration and belonging. Please note the piece is in English and Mandarin / Cantonese. A written transcript is available on request.
International Collaboration
Thanks to AHEAD funding, I was able to travel to UoN Ningbo for extensive Research and Development with my collaborators, Dr Lan Lo (University of Nottingham) and Dr Derek Irwin (Associate Dean of Education, UoN Ningbo). This involved site visits to map a route for our audio walk across the UoN Ningbo Campus (which is similar to the University of Nottingham’s campus), as well as discussions with Derek about the logistics of hosting audio on the UoN Ningbo Faculty of Arts website and installation of plaques.
Dr Lan Lo and I spent time mapping our existing audio tracks from Nottingham onto the potential trees in Ningbo and routes between them – which could only have been done in situ. This enabled us to send amends to our sound artist, Chris Cousin, to adapt our tracks for use in Ningbo. The plan is to install the plaques and the audio tracks in Autumn 2024. While in Ningbo we also led a theatre workshop with some BA students who are studying Theatre as an extra-curricular activity – this enabled me to test out new workshop activities involving John Berger’s Field essay (1981) and engage in some site-based writing which took place at the trees we plan to use for our audio walk.
We delivered a one-hour information session to Confucius Institute staff and students at UoN Ningbo who we plan to involve in our project when it is installed as participants and/or advocates. We were then invited to speak at Zhe Jiang Wan Li University to Business Students and delivered a 90-minute seminar about the project and its themes with a focus on international collaboration. We met the Dean of the Faculty of Business who is interested in the project, and this may lead to future collaboration with the university. Finally, we spent time with Derek discussing the idea of creating a new tree track – entitled Family Tree – which will be sited outside the campus and have a community focus. This would involve interviewing local community members, as well as staff and students, about the university’s relationship to the city, and be sited at an old Yew Tree that has seen much change over the last 20 years since UoN Ningbo opened. There is potential to expand the Family Tree concept to other project partners (e.g. Zhe Jiang Wan Li University) and involve the students who attended our activities. Dr Lan Lo has set up a We Chat group to keep details from everyone we spoke to during our visit and will update them on potential collaboration. We are now waiting for the installation of the tracks in Ningbo before hosting a launch event.
Next Steps
We applied for British Council International Collaboration funding to expand the project to Kuala Lumpur, where University of Nottingham have a campus. This tri-campus collaboration will be in three languages and adapt the audio walk to another international site with support from University of Nottingham and British Council. I received Sustainability funding from Manchester Metropolitan University to expand the project to Manchester and have invested this in plaques used in Ningbo. We are hosting a launch event at the University of Nottingham as part of Being Human Festival in November 2024. This involves a new audio walk between the Leaving Tree, the Arriving Tree and the Future Trees.
More information here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/confucius/funded-projects/talking-trees.aspx
