The Teapot Trust Elsewhere Garden will incorporate an interactive soundscape that enables visitors to experience the garden and engage with the plants and environment in a totally new way. Visitors will see and hear things behaving in unexpected ways and have to use their imaginations to figure out what’s going on and express how they feel about it. Mirroring the process of art therapy where children and young people are encouraged to explore their emotions about invasive medical procedures and treatments and overcome their fears.

Composer and sound artist Michael Begg and audiovisual artist Kathy Hinde are collaborating to create this unique experimental soundscape to bring the garden to life. Sensors, microphones, tiny computers and even an ECG machine, will be used to help find the sounds of the Elsewhere Garden, which will even respond to touch and sound. 

A silent-disco style rig, kindly supported by Silent Disco King, will allow those taking in the garden to listen to three different “layers” of the landscape – “under the ground, just above the ground where the foliage is thick and up in the tree canopy”. Michael says "Soundscapes, real and imagined, are sampled from each layer of the garden and mix the familiar with the strange and uncanny, inviting us to conjure new narratives and new mysteries in a creative process that echos the power of art therapy to unlock the imagination.”

Photography © Andrea Jones/Garden Exposures Photo Library

Michael Begg (Sound Artist) 

Michael Begg is a composer, sound artist and musician. He has completed residencies with the Ocean ARTic Partnership, and Seeing Hearing UK Mexico (CMMAS, Cryptic, British Council Mexico, Anglo Arts). He is also the founder of the Back Glass Ensemble, and an associate artist at The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh. Michael is presently artist in residence to the EU Marine Board. Awards include the Scottish Award for New Music, 2018. 

Kathy Hinde (Audio Visual Artist) 

Kathy is an audio-visual artist who has shown work extensively across Europe, Russia, China, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, USA, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. Awards include an Ivor Novello Award for Sound Art in 2020, an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica in 2015, and a British Composer Award in Sonic Art in 2017, an ORAM award in 2017 and a Scottish Award for New Music in 2018.   

Header photo by Murdo Macleod