Sea pollution explored in new podcast

Academics, environmentalists, musicians and retired seafarers will over three years make six return ferry crossings between Malcolm Lowry’s birthplace, Wirral and neighbouring Liverpool, and his favourite location, the Isle of Man.

Sound recordings from the journeys, including short interviews, re-tellings of passages from Malcolm Lowry’s short stories, and abstract sounds, will be used to create a series of podcasts, with the help of ‘Frozen Planet’ sound recordist, Chris Watson. The podcasts will be showcased in a new display at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

The project is led by Dr Alan Dunn, Reader at Leeds Beckett’s Leeds School of Arts and Dr Helen Tookey, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Liverpool Screen School, in collaboration with Liverpool’s Centre for Contemporary Art, Bluecoat, and Mariner’s Park, a retirement facility for those with maritime experience.

Dr Helen Tookey commented: “Lowry was prescient in his love and respect for the natural world and his fear for its destruction by capitalist industrial development, both articulated in his collection of short stories ‘Hear Us O Lord From Heaven Thy Dwelling Place’. This proto-ecological angle to his work, coupled with his lifelong love of the sea, makes him a fascinating writer to draw on in thinking about our current relationship to our oceans and the threats of plastic pollution and global warming.”

The work will be carried out under the guidance of one of the world's leading sound recordists - Chris Watson. His award-winning natural history work with David Attenborough, including BBC series ‘Frozen Planet,’ has given Chris a unique insight into the relationship between the environment and sound. Chris was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Leeds Beckett University in 2018 in recognition of his successful career in sound engineering.

The project has been funded by a £29,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Dr Dunn explained: “My grandad and dad designed and built ships and hovercrafts on the River Clyde. When I read an article claiming that plastics from the oceans had entered the human food chain and that our seas are being polluted with eight million metric tons of plastic every year, I started to think about bringing together creative people to make new content in response to this unfathomable situation.”