False Creek’s Thunderclouds of Sounds

Sunday, September 25, 2022; 11:30am
Led by Jorma Kujala

Meeting location: 6th and Fir Park, at entrance located at the northwest corner of West 6th Avenue and Fir Street [map]
End point: Hadden Park field house, 1015 Maple Street.

Duration: 90 minutes (includes short introduction, approximately one hour of walking time, and debrief/open discussion afterwards)

Vancouver continues to have a very complicated relationship with development and urbanization, and has faced multiple challenges arising from building booms that have shaken this city and tested our ears since the late 1880’s. The southern shores of False Creek have shaken, reverberated and been seemingly turned upside down from thunderclaps that mark this changing urban landscape: indigenous communities; colonization; industry; residential; commercial. This soundwalk invites participants to pause and linger over the sound of one’s presence, ripples of fleeting energies that nonetheless evoke past markers and lives. We will walk, listen and escape along evolving and eroding pathways that point to historical echoes of Vancouver’s past, traverse alongside the present, as well as invite sonic imaginings of what the future might have in store. 

Note: this soundwalk will end at the Hadden Park field house in time for participants to take part in soundgarden – Hadden Park, presented by Vancouver New Music and Publik Secrets, which runs from 1–4pm.

Jorma Kujala’s academic and interdisciplinary art practice includes painting, mixed media, collage, drawing, as well as his soundwalking research as coordinator of the Vancouver Soundwalk Collective. His work is informed by the interchange between the social and the studio, and he researches networks of shared knowledge, identity, memory, and social interaction that emerge when culture, communication, and social forces intersect. His work also investigates perceptions of truth, repetition, re-creation and re-enactment, as well as the bodily interplay between the senses, the individual, and environments. He gratefully acknowledges he lives, works and plays on the unceded ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples: the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), the Tsleil-Waututh (Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh) and the Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) Nations.

Roadside Magic: A Soundwalk in Hastings Park

Sunday, October 2, 2022; 2pm
Led by Helena Krobath

Meeting location: Sidewalk plaza outside of the PNE Forum (Renfrew and Hastings) [map]
End point: close to starting location.

Duration: 90 minutes (includes opening/closing discussion and approx. 1 hour soundwalk)

Hastings Park is a surprising hub of gardens and play spaces near the Cassiar exit on Highway 1. On this soundwalk, we will listen to layers of urban design, environment and habitation in the park complex. Known for large venues such as Playland, Hastings Racecourse, and Empire Field, Hastings Park is also thick with publicly accessible greenery, play areas, and infrastructure.

We will finish near where we start. Walking will take a moderate pace with one short downhill/ uphill section and some pauses along the way. Scooter/motorized chair accessible. Please email soundwalks@newmusic.org for more accessibility information.

More about the site

The park is located in a topographical setting shaped by millenia of Indigenous silviculture and trade. Since colonization, the corridor has been a zone for processing and shipping, as well as one of the earliest working class neighbourhoods in Vancouver. The park is now located in a mixed demographic neighbourhood, wedged between an intersection of travel routes: the Hastings line, TransCanada Highway, Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, and Burrard Inlet. Against this backdrop, we explore the mixed uses and recreational designs of the Hastings Park public space.

Parking/transit

Free street parking is located on Hastings west of Renfrew and in marked areas off Hastings (check city signs). There are pay parking lots within the PNE grounds, and transit stops for Hastings/Powell/Renfrew buses nearby.

Helena Krobath is an independent artist, sound editor, and educator. She recently published the Journal of Design and Culture’s first audio essay, “East Vancouver Dispatch: Ecotones and Subsistence Zones”, about invisible labour and sheltering-in-place during the pandemic. Her audio web installation about grief and institutionalization, “The World is Gone, This is the World”, is forthcoming from Decoy Gallery.

Join members of the Vancouver Soundwalk Collective on a unique, guided, listening tour. A Soundwalk is a silent walk along a planned route to experience a location’s ambiance and underlying rhythms. All too often the sounds of the environment pass by unnoticed because of our uncanny ability to shut them out. A Soundwalk invites participants to actively listen, opening ears and consciousness to the complex orchestration that the environment is composing at all times. It is a musical-sonic adventure that reveals the banal to be extraordinary!

Soundwalks are co-presented with the Vancouver Soundwalk Collective.

Soundwalks are FREE and open to the public. Soundwalks happen rain or shine, so participants should be sure to wear appropriate footwear and clothing for any weather condition.

Photos, top to bottom: Jorma Kujala; Helena Krobath.