Radio that ‘listens in’ rather than ‘broadcasts out’

Connect your listeners to the sounds of creatures of the marsh on Earth Day 2018 by joining the 24-hour Wetland broadcast, available free to all NCRA members through the Community Radio Exchange

The Wetland Project is a beautiful, quietly amazing work of micro-post-geographical art that allows us to be wherever we are and somewhere wonderfully natural and real, simultaneously. It’s an experience I wish everyone could have, and I wish there were more experiences like it. — William Gibson

Vancouver Co-op Radio’s 24-hour broadcast of the Wetland soundscape on Earth Day 2017 surpassed expectations. Experiencing the rich soundscape captured on Saturna Island, British Columbia, radio listeners embraced the ambient format which connected the real-time rhythms of the natural world to their everyday activities. The broadcast went global for over a thousand more online listeners. The soundscape was heard on city buses, in hair salons and in pubs. Feedback was unanimous, positive and enthusiastic.

Join Vancouver Co-operative Radio (www.coopradio.org) and other campus and community radio stations across Canada for the return of the Wetland broadcast. Celebrate Earth Day on Sunday, April 22, 2018, by turning the airwaves over to the voices of the creatures—frogs, birds, insects and more—for this experience in “slow radio.” Created and produced by BC multimedia artists Brady Marks and Mark Timmings, the broadcast commemorates the 50-year anniversary of the founding of the World Soundscape Project (WSP) by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University.

In 1975, Bruce Davis, a WSP member, proposed “wilderness radio” that would broadcast sounds from a remote natural environment to the city. It would be “a radio service which ‘listens in’ rather than broadcasts out.’” Three decades later, the Wetland broadcast realizes his vision.

“How deeply are we engaged with the world through our ears?” asks Hildegard Westerkamp, composer, radio artist and WSP member. “Learning how to listen, and what kind of listener we are in the world, is an environmental question.” The Wetland broadcast inspires close attention to changing soundscapes and bears witness to the state of our environment. WSP members initiated the discipline of Acoustic Ecology by studying, through active listening, the relationship between humans and their environment.

All the resources you need to take part in the 2018 Wetland broadcast—whether you choose to air the full 24-hour cycle or a shorter segment—are available free to NCRA member stations through the Community Radio Exchange.

For more information about joining the broadcast contact info@wetlandproject.com