Sounding the Angel is a Newcastle University project, supported by the Catherine Cookson Foundation, which aims to capture through sound the memorial site at The Angel of the North in Gateshead. I am collaborating with sound artist David de la Haye.
Since The Angel of the North was installed twenty-five years ago, the trees nearby have become a spontaneous grassroots memorial where people leave messages and tokens for their loved ones. We will produce a shared story about the objects that are left there and what The Angel means to those who leave objects at the memorial site.
A key part of the project is the recording of conversations with people who leave memorial objects at The Angel. Extracts from these conversations will be combined with field recordings that document the different seasons at the site to make a sound work of 15-20 minutes duration. This will be exhibited in the Arches Sound Project at Newcastle University in July 2024, and those listening to it will be able to see Antony Gormley’s ‘Clasp’ sculpture, which was installed nearby to mark the twentieth anniversary of The Angel of the North. Participants in the project will be invited to a launch event to hear and respond to the work, and to meet other participants.
The project will communicate the significance of the memorial to others, as well as preserve a record of it that can be taken into the future. The conversations will enable us better to understand The Angel of the North site from the perspective of those who visit it.
Blog posts relating to this project can be found here.
You can contact me on: anne.whitehead@newcastle.ac.uk