Search
My feed
SWS21 2021

No Birds Land

No Birds Land sound installation
Trinity Path, Edinburgh, UK
10 minutes

Birds

Collection · 24 items

Edinburgh

Collection · 34 items

Sustrans

Collection · 4 items

Trinity Tunnel

Collection · 1 items

Related

Sound walk

Walk With Me

Talking Birds offers digital versions of its actor-led Walk With Me walking tours exploring historic Coventry neighbourhoods. Current trails include Walk With Me #1 in Spon End, #2 in Stoke, and #4 from Naul’s Mill Park along Coventry Canal to the Nest.

birdmail
walkingevent

Festival Soundings of Edinburgh

Festival Soundings of Edinburgh is a FREE online group walk to explore the venues, places and spaces of past Edinburgh festivals revealed through audio recordings of the memories of city residents and visitors.

Louise Todd Andrew Stuck +2
Sound walk

Soundwalk at the park

This is the sound recording of a walk at Pedra Azul State Park in Espirito Santo, Brazil. It’s a very special soundwalk because it emphasizes the interaction between human activity and birds.

Gabriela de Azevedo
post

“Bird language is key to understanding all other animal languages”

Anne Cecilie Caroline Brunborg Lie was one of the two winners of last year's Sound Walk September 2019, with her piece Entangled Formation, set in Prague. Here, Anne talks about her work.

Anne Cecilie Caroline Brunborg Lie
post

Only when you don’t see them

Tamsin Grainger tells us that every 2 minutes, 2 pairs of breeding birds disappear from the UK. Her installation piece No Birds Land highlights this, and more.

Tamsin Grainger
post

Sound Walk September 2021 Awards shortlist

This year, we had over 150 eligible submissions for the awards, meaning that trimming them down to a manageable shortlist was more difficult than ever.

Babak Fakhamzadeh

Birds

Collection · 24 items

Edinburgh

Collection · 34 items

Sustrans

Collection · 4 items

Trinity Tunnel

Collection · 1 items

Related

Sound walk

Walk With Me

Talking Birds offers digital versions of its actor-led Walk With Me walking tours exploring historic Coventry neighbourhoods. Current trails include Walk With Me #1 in Spon End, #2 in Stoke, and #4 from Naul’s Mill Park along Coventry Canal to the Nest.

birdmail
walkingevent

Festival Soundings of Edinburgh

Festival Soundings of Edinburgh is a FREE online group walk to explore the venues, places and spaces of past Edinburgh festivals revealed through audio recordings of the memories of city residents and visitors.

Louise Todd Andrew Stuck +2
Sound walk

Soundwalk at the park

This is the sound recording of a walk at Pedra Azul State Park in Espirito Santo, Brazil. It’s a very special soundwalk because it emphasizes the interaction between human activity and birds.

Gabriela de Azevedo
post

“Bird language is key to understanding all other animal languages”

Anne Cecilie Caroline Brunborg Lie was one of the two winners of last year's Sound Walk September 2019, with her piece Entangled Formation, set in Prague. Here, Anne talks about her work.

Anne Cecilie Caroline Brunborg Lie
post

Only when you don’t see them

Tamsin Grainger tells us that every 2 minutes, 2 pairs of breeding birds disappear from the UK. Her installation piece No Birds Land highlights this, and more.

Tamsin Grainger
post

Sound Walk September 2021 Awards shortlist

This year, we had over 150 eligible submissions for the awards, meaning that trimming them down to a manageable shortlist was more difficult than ever.

Babak Fakhamzadeh
A sound/art installation in the Trinity Tunnel of the Edinburgh cycle path network, Scotland.

A soundwalk in the Trinity Tunnel, Edinburgh, drawing attention to the fact that during the 2 minutes it takes to walk through the tunnel, 2 pairs of breeding birds will disappear in the UK.
Once part of the railway located between Trinity and Trinity Junction, the Trinity Tunnel is now absorbed into the cycle path network. It is 183 paces long and an eerie, birdsound-less place. No birds land there. At either end are arresting signs – Stop Listen to the Birds! and a QR code which takes you to a Soundcloud recording of a sound poem made up of human-appropriated bird sounds. Along the walls are old cable hooks on which hang festoons of bunting, each triangular pennant sporting a bird illustration from found materials. On the reverse are common bird-sound written words, rough translations of bird song.
August – November coinciding with the Edinburgh Festival, the RSPB Revive Our World, and the Glasgow COP26. In partnership with RSPB and Sustrans.

The Trinity Tunnel is on route 13 (Trinity to Granton) of the Edinburgh cycle path network where it goes under East Trinity Road

Using w3w, you can find the south end at ///hands.calculating.wiping, the north end at wins.trial.preoccupied.

Geographic coordinates: 55.976045, -3.203276

Update 1: 25 October 2021. I led a group of 50 pilgrims through the tunnel and the bunting had been vandalised, the pennants lying crumpled and dirty in puddles. I didn’t take a photo. There was no time to make it right because we had a long way to walk that day. L and A, my friends, went on Tuesday to repair and rehang.

Update 2: 14 November COP26 ended last night and many feel that decisions taken did not go far enough. In light of this, I have digitally reworked the visual aspects of the No Birds Land installation, once more inspired by artist Hagar Vardimon (https://hagarvardimon.com/art/the-new-york-times-magazine/)

No Birds Land sound poem

Copyright: Tamsin Grainger

APA style reference

Grainger, T. (2021). No Birds Land. walk · listen · create. https://walklistencreate.org/walkingpiece/no-birds-land/

3 thoughts on “No Birds Land

slew

A short walk or stroll, as in “I’ll take a slew around the harbour before going to bed.” from the Dictionary of Newfoundland English (University of Toronto Press, 1982).

Added by Marlene Creates
Problem?

Encountered a problem? Report it to let us know.

  • Include the page on which you encountered the problem.
  • Describe what happened.
  • Describe what you expected to happen.
Follow us