RE:SOUND with Anthony Szmierek

As our final highlight for Heritage Open Days 2024, we’re sharing a wonderful film from Manchester City of Literature showcasing the Re:Sound project featuring BBC 6 Artist of the Year Antony Szmierek exploring the sound archives at Manchester Libraries with sound archivist David Govier.

Re:Sound paired musicians with archives around Greater Manchester. The artists connected with librarians and archivists to uncover historic material which explored a range of themes that have so far included Manchester’s textile history, African celebrations in Manchester and the changing role of women in society, ghosts and exorcism, Caribbean traditions and more.

The Re:Sound musicians used the archives to create stunning work across a range of music styles which respond to these themes and also sampled the original sound archives that inspired their creation. In 2022 and 2023 the musicians premiered this work as part of a special showcase, where artists also take part in a question-and-answer session to provided valuable insight into their creative practice and process to our audience.

To empower communities to reimagine the role and importance of local archives, sound artists were paired with community groups, who together create brand new works which responds to the music created by the artists. As part of Re:Sound the artists delivered workshops to inspire these groups to use their own artistic talents to engage with historic themes that are still relevant to life in Manchester today.

We really enjoyed the Re:Sound project which was hugely inspirational and the film captures brilliantly all the things we love about Archives. Sound heritage has a uniquely appealing capacity to reach across time and place, sparking new diverse generations to produce original music and art which is both immersive and engaging for everyone.

The Re:Sound project has been made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund awarding Re:Sound a grant, raised by National Lottery players.