Sounds From A Safe Harbour and Body & Soul announce new multi-disciplinary project 'A City & A Garden'

Music
29 Apr 21

CMK 29042021 REPRO FREE NO FEE Pictured: Literary editor Danny Denton (The Stinging Fly), Creative Director Mary Hickson (Festival Director of SFSH) and Visual artist Deirdre Breen launching A CITY + A GARDEN - a state-of-the-art sonic experience, combining story & song with the world around us. Through headphones, immerse yourself in a tailor-made narrative & soundtrack as you walk the streets and gardens of urban Ireland, enveloped by voices and sounds from the realm of the imagination. Some of Ireland’s most exciting writers and musicians have been commissioned to create four sonic journeys to make the familiar new and the everyday sublime. Gavin Corbett, Louise Hegarty, Lisa McInerney and Melatu-Uche Okorie are the four writers, musicians and voice artists to be announced shortly. Commissioned by Sounds from a Safe Harbour in association with Body & Soul, A CITY + A GARDEN is happening throughout Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh | 11-20 June 2021 | Cork City + National Bontanic Gardens, Dublin | Free admission. Photographer: Clare Keogh

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Commissioned by popular Cork-based festival Sounds from a Safe Harbour Festival and in association with Body & Soul, A City & A Garden is presented as part of Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh – a nationwide, ten-day season of arts experiences brought to Dublin and Cork by the Arts Council.

Sounds From A Safe Harbour and Body & Soul have announced a state-of-the-art sonic experience, "combining story and song with the world around us."

Throughout Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh (11-20 June 2021), folks in Cork and Dublin will be able to discover stories and songs as they walk through the Cork City Streets and the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, through smartphone technology.

A City and A Garden will bring together some of Ireland’s most exciting writers and musicians to realise this ambitious, multi-disciplinary project. Literary curator Danny Denton (editor of The Stinging Fly) has selected four exceptional writers - Gavin Corbett, Louise Hegarty, Lisa McInerney and Melatu-Uche Okorie - to create new stories.

Responses to these stories will expand the team to include Seán MacErlaine (sound designer and Musical Director), Deirdre Breen (visual artists and multidisciplinary designer), WP Cork Developers, voice-over artists, and a host of talent to help bring the tales to life.

“The impact of the last 12 months has been huge on everyone in so many ways," said Creative Director of A City and A Garden and Director of Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival Mary Hickson. "At the very least, we’ve all been challenged to re-imagine the arts, our lifestyle, and commerce through a new lens. Challenges like this bring the possibility of new artistic opportunities, so we’ve risen to this and made a new event that will allow people to experience some art and culture in a way that helps them to re-interpret their surroundings in a very personal and exciting way.

"It is so incredibly refreshing to be making new work that can safely exist and be experienced in this time. The result of this challenge for us is our new project 'a city + a garden'. We look forward to presenting this to everyone and to providing creative and imaginative filters to many people's everyday landscape.”

Admission is free throughout Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh, and Cork Midsummer Festival, and all that is required is your smartphone, headphones and an imagination.

Learn more at soundsfromasafeharbour.com