“Listen to the Voices of the Fen” launched on 18th July 2024 for World Listening Day and extended until autumn 2025, and was created in partnership with Wicken Fen National Trust Nature Reserve and Babylon Arts. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Listen to the Voices of the Fen invites you to actively listen to the voices of many different species at Wicken Fen. Activities and installations reveal hidden soundworlds we may not usually notice, from underwater, underground and inside trees. The audience were invited to listen from a new perspective on a listening walk, participate in workshops, or wander through a trail of sound installations, all focussed on the intriguing and captivating soundworlds and ecosystem of Wicken Fen.

During spring and summer 2025, a workshops series invited local communities to explore actively listening together and instrument-making, culminating with a series of installations and a co-created performance at Wicken Fen. From Friday 18 July, World Listening Day, until Sunday 28 September, a new sculptural sound trail welcomed audiences into the ancient fen landscape. Below are a series of photos from the trail, which also feature artworks by and collaborations with Oliver Payne, Stevie Wishart, Amy Wyllie and Matthew Olden.

Compositions created from the field recordings and instruments crafted from locally-sourced natural materials wove a network of delicate soundscapes, to be listened to through overhead dome-shaped speakers. Kinetic sound sculptures responded to shifting water levels, emphasising water’s vital role in preserving the peatlands. Wind-powered aeolian instruments resonated with the ever-present breezes that sweep across the landscape and a few playful elements feature kinetic sound sculptures that echo some of Wicken Fen’s natural voices and include interactive elements.

The opening of the Listen to the Voices of the Fen trail was further celebrated on Sunday 20 July with a live performance by workshop participants on hand-made overtone flutes crafted from local willow branches. The choir of flutes created evocative soundscapes in response to locations and soundworlds, woven through the sculptural sound trail following a series of co-creation workshops with Jan Hendrickse and Kathy Hinde.

Artist and Sound Designer, Oliver Payne and multi-disciplinary creative, Amy Wyllie, joined the creative team in early 2025 to lead on co-creation workshops with local schools and community groups which formed an integral part of the project and generated materials that were embedded within the sound trail. Composer and violinist Stevie Wishart created violin music, inspired by the local birdsong, returning to the Fen where she improvised as a child amongst the reeds. Oliver Payne built a giant wooden listening horn and a wind activated sound sculpture. Creative technologist, Matthew Olden has contributed sound design and programmed for the online interactive instruments responding to environmental data, and a live audio stream from Wicken Fen.

Find out more on the project website HERE designed and created by City Edition Studios, where you can explore an interactive soundmap, a ‘virtual’ aeolian harp and tune in live to an underwater microphone submerged in a watery ditch running alongside Sedge Fen at Wicken Fen. This underwater soundscape is being live-streamed as part of ‘locus-sonus’ soundmap, streaming soundscapes from all over the world to explore the ever-evolving relationship between sound and place.

SUMMER 2024

During summer 2024, Sound Pools installation was created specially for the boardwalk at Wicken Fen, launched on World Listening Day (18 July) and was available to experience until the end of September. Many visitors to the fen enjoyed Sound Pools, which was a taster for a larger show for summer 2025, including multiple installations and a performative launch event on World Listening day 2025. Participatory workshops will take place in the lead up to this event.

Sounds from underwater and underground are elevated into a series of overhead speakers, inviting people to step in and out of different soundworlds, to become immersed in the chirping sounds of underwater invertebrates, crackling sounds of fish and to spark curiousity about the sounds hidden deep inside the peat where carbon and time are held.

Deep Listening Walks

Deep Listening Walks are taking place at Wicken Fen throughout the project, providing opportunities to tune in to more of the natural world, and immerse yourself in the sounds you can’t usually hear. Check the Wicken Fen ‘events‘ page to find out about Listening Walks, and other ways to get involved in the project and visit the reserve.

FIND OUT MORE on the project website HERE.