Completed on World Environment Day, this immersive audio piece captures moments of the natural world around Brock Hill wood, site of an ancient badger sett, that are woven together to make a single day. Exploring a sense of place and a return to source, it is part ASMR experience, part meditation – an invitation to dwell within a guided journey without words. Only the landscape speaks.
Created as both stand-alone work and a means to address writer’s block, this is a deep listening piece that encourages the experiencer to un-focus and yet to notice, to pay attention, to discover sounds behind sounds. To achieve this, I have built a sonic world painted with a subtle brush – removing any overt references to my artistic style. What remains is a fragile framework, a leaf skeleton but with strong intent and buried symbolism . Wind rattling the leaves of a Silver Birch, a tree used for centuries to celebrate new beginnings. Heritage touchstones – my mother’s childhood memories of birdsong and running water over stones in the Himalayan foothills.
The title of the piece refers to the loss of time when creators are in touch with themselves. When this occurs, we move around, through and between obstacles like water, like wind – entering a world where nothing is in the way. Writer’s block is the disconnect from this zone. It is often the elephant in the room – the thing that no artist likes to admit and yet we all succumb to it at one time or another. Internal and external stressors can become so compounded that we experience total gridlock.
To unpick the knot, we need to zoom out, to yield. It is hoped that by carrying you on this journey, it will contribute to reconnecting with that zone. No other creature on earth (including us), remains as faithful to place as the Badger. Some setts have been dated to over 10,000 years old and they still continue to be inhabited and expanded. And so to re-engage, to return to source I’ve used the badger sett as a symbol – testimony to purpose, to never giving up, to the fruits of your labours being the result of who you are and that by simply acting on your calling, you are enough.
With love,
Andy Garbi
