Vancouver, Canada — Varna Bulgaria
Vancouver, Canada and Varna Bulgaria have something in common: each is a coastal city, each is highly developed but also somewhat second-tier compared to its bigger geopolitical industrial urban centres. Water, somehow, frames city life and the experience of being there. This Sonic Urban Walkthrough will be a partnership with Varna’s Social Teahouse: a unique social enterprise that provides urban engagement opportunities for disadvantaged youth. This project involves a set of soundwalking and field recording workshops with youth in Varna, with the aim of creating a set of audio documentaries about their sonic point of view.
Milena Droumeva is an Associate Professor of Communication and Sound Studies at Simon Fraser University specializing in mobile technologies, sound studies and multimodal ethnography. They have a background in acoustic ecology and work across the fields of urban soundscape research, sonification for public engagement, as well as gender and sound in video games. Milena’s current research combines livability with urban soundscapes research, including sonification of socially relevant data.