The sound walk Along These Lines is a collaboration between Quiet Down There and sound artist Anna Celeste Edmonds, creating an immersive experience that explores Brighton’s laundry heritage.

This work is one of the shortlisted pieces for the Sound Walk September Awards 2024. 
Below, Anna talks about her practice, and the piece.

The collaboration between heritage and sound is special to me; explored through my broad archive of recordings, piano and voice compositions and stories over many years. When I first began intertwining the two, I enjoyed wandering through buildings, ruins and landscapes, recorder in-hand, dreaming up stories of what had been or what could still be of these spaces. In my earlier years of field recording, my dad would accompany me on these expeditions, advising on make-shift microphones or areas of audible interest, sometimes bringing a drum or other items to sound. I never had much budget for equipment, and that taught me to be creative with what I had. Over the years, my relationship with heritage and sound alternated between a social and a solitary one, and I was often alone in my wandering. In 2018, I was lucky enough to follow my passion through a funded doctorate in partnership with Echoes and The Regency Town House museum, where I explored iterative experience design, ambisonics and listener engagement through creating outdoor locative 3D head-tracked soundwalks at the heritage site of Brunswick Square. I took what I learnt from this journey and applied it to this walk, in the hope I can offer something informative and engaging, yet personal to the listener; like the projects have been for me. The antiphony between heritage and sound is a commemoration, whether we are immersed in the awe-inspiring, traversing the challenging or simply hearing our everyday. 

The project

‘Along These Lines’ is a Heritage Lottery funded immersive soundwalk on laundry heritage centred around themes of women’s history and activism, working class lives, local ecology and laundrettes in Brighton. It was created iteratively as part of a collaboration between local laundry and arts charity Quiet Down There and a small team of community contributors, who helped me with archival research, testing out the sounds and tech, and running free public listening sessions during Heritage Open Days and Dreamy Place digital festival throughout Autumn 2023. The contributors Helen Dewhurst, Suvat Kadar and Stella Sims, and charity project manager Emily Atkinson were also included in some of the audio works, imbuing their own voice or research interests into audio tracks (such as ‘A Brief History of Doing the Laundry’, and ‘Everyday Washing’). ‘Along These Lines’ is a collection of many local perspectives of laundry heritage, including insight from Maria and Gerry from the Brighton and Hove Women’s History Group, and lively discussion with geographer and social historian Geoffrey Mead. 

Our local laundry heritage

Laundry is a distinctly aural and sensory experience, we often hear people talk of the sounds, smells and feels that come with a trip to the laundrette, and many local people remember someone in their family working in laundry services. The team and I explored local archives and resources to research and uncover stories, photos, and film of 19th and 20th century laundry heritage, linked to Roundhill, Elm Grove, Hanover, and The Level in Brighton and Hove. Laundries have been a site for organising, meeting, and connecting for over 200 years, often becoming hotbeds of activism for women’s suffrage and solidarity, but so far, these incredible stories have not had the recognition they deserve. This sound walk explores narratives on laundry history, industry, and women’s work in the area, also exploring some of the key features of the local landscape which lead to the placement of these laundrettes and drying fields within the urban environment. These narratives are complimented by my own compositions and field recordings inspired by research undertaken throughout the project.

Designing and experiencing the sound walk

Five tracks were tested with the public in September 2023 at Heritage Open Days, where listener feedback was collected to shape the final 10-track soundwalk experienced as part of Dreamy Place at the end of October 2023. ‘Along These Lines’ is mapped taking the local urban landscape into account, considering inclines, distance and hazards within the design to create a walk that provided as much insight into local laundry history of the area as possible, but was also accessible to a variety of listeners who might have different levels of mobility. Listening sessions took weather and time of day into account, as well as listener safety, including pedestrian crossings and lit areas for after dark walking (after work sessions in October ended just as darkness fell). Support was given during public sessions by me and one of the contributors to provide guidance and troubleshooting where needed.

Unlike my doctoral audio experiences, ‘Along These Lines’ was a combination of spatialised binaural and ambisonic recordings mixed to binaural listening, to be compatible with a variety of public personal devices and equipment. Both the Echoes app and a ‘treasure hunt’ of QR codes along the route were offered to listeners, so they could navigate the walk in a way that suited them and their level of comfort with technology, and both were used equally throughout. These options also mitigated any compatibility issues between devices, GPS wandering due to the urban environment if using the Echoes app, or bugs that might occur during the walk. 

Listeners were also given a colourful zine with a soundmap and further information on tracks to guide them, and a hand-made fabric keepsake to sniff during their walk which was scented with a clean laundry smell – these multisensory aspects were well received. Each QR code sign and track had a corresponding image to assist listeners on their journey. Headphones, splitters, adapters, and spare mobile phones were offered for anyone who did not have the equipment to take part, or wanted to share the experience with a friend.

The walk brought together listeners who were local but also those who had travelled quite far to attend sessions. The inclusion of iterations of the walk in two contrasting festivals brought a diverse array of listeners from different age demographics, locations, genders and backgrounds. I feel as if the combination of women’s history, storytelling, sound and technology was a key factor in the range of listeners in attendance. 

Exploring the tracks

The audio content of ‘Along These Lines’ is an intertwining of field recordings, musical compositions, and dialogue. The field recordings included hydrophone recordings from inside a washing machine running a cycle, as well recording with a hand-held recorder inside the drum. Soundscapes captured at some of the urban locations were also interwoven into the audio tracks. The dialogue includes extracts from discussions I had with Geoffrey Mead on the local laundry landscape, addressing the key hotspots in the sound walk – Roundhill, Elm Grove, Hanover and the Level. I also wrote and recorded dialogue to support Geoffrey’s animated anecdotes, based on archival research conducted and chats with Maria and Gerry from Brighton and Hove Women’s History Group on the significance of laundries in these areas. 

The track ‘The Difference – Clean’ was selected to be included in ‘Along These Lines’ by ‘Clean – the Musical‘ director and writer Sam Chittenden. The musical, which includes music written by Simon Scardanelli, explores the lives of seven women living in the historic ‘Laundry Hill’ area of Brighton, known as Roundhill, through different eras. The story of ‘Clean’ addresses the smallpox outbreak in 1950, as well as other themes of suffrage and women’s work which are found in ‘Along These Lines’.

The track ‘Everyday Washing’ includes recited extracts from diary entries found in The Keep archives, where women were documenting their experience of doing the laundry between 1953-54. ‘A Brief History of Doing the Laundry’ combined written and recorded dialogue from contributor Stella Sims accompanied by delicate hydrophone recordings. The sound walk both begins and ends with storytelling around two key figures in local activist and laundry heritage – Harry and Harriet Cowley, who each had their place in creating change within the community.

‘Along The Lines’ utilised original piano compositions in ‘Everyday Washing’ and ‘Laundry Music’. The piano in ‘Everyday Washing’ was written to emphasise the emotional expression found in the diary entries, and to add another layer to the voices weaving in and out of the composition. ‘Laundry Music’ was intended as a peaceful interlude near the end of the walk; with the listener ambling through a tunnel of trees before reaching their last stop at a café on the corner, where they would be greeted and offered a drink and a chat, and often a sweet treat from project manager Emily. After the last track, ‘Laundry and Activism’, each listener received a handmade badge showing art created by local design studio Little River Press, to accompany their collection of keepsakes. The café stop was curated at the end as an opportunity for listeners to debrief with us and share their experience, but also was a welcomed break for listeners to socialise before they made their journey home. 

‘Along These Lines’ is free and still available to experience on site in Brighton through the Echoes app – just find your way to the East entrance of the Open Market to start. It can also be heard remotely through my website and Soundcloud, the charity’s website and here on WLC.

The winner and honourable mention of the SWS Awards 2024 will be announced around the start of 2025.