Alongside the central Cities and Memory project and our ongoing, ever-expanding global sound map, Cities and Memory is the home of regular global collaborative projects, bringing hundreds of artists together to explore aspects of sound in detail.
These are some of the highlights from our most recent projects. You can find a full list of projects below, and you can read press coverage of our projects here.
Expand a project name to find out more about it, and explore its sounds in full.
Aelita: Queen of Mars is a global first in movie soundtracks, a crowdsourced soundtrack to this 1924 Soviet sci-fi classic made by 60 artists, with 900 possible soundtrack combinations.
A Century of Sounds is a partnership between Cities and Memory and the Pitt Rivers Museum, inviting listeners to explore compositions created by 100 artists from a century of incredible recordings from the museum’s sound collections.
Dada Sounds marks a century of Dadaism by applying the techniques and practices of Dada to field recordings from around the world, bringing a Dadaist approach to the concepts of sound, place and memory and creating a new, Dada-inspired sound world.
A Cities and Memory commission by Dreamland, the oldest surviving amusement park in the UK, which relaunched in June 2015. Reimagining the sounds of Dreamland, and collecting the sounds of the town of Margate.
Flow is a creative exploration of the river Lech, telling the story of a river through sound – a collaboration with the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg.
Migration Sounds is the first ever global collection of the sounds of human migration, using sound to reframe and reimagine conversations around migration.
Music for Sleep is a worldwide collaboration between artists and field recordists to create a unique collection of compositions specially designed for rest, sleep and tranquillity. There are more than 280 compositions and recordings covering 41 countries in an incredible range of artistic styles.
The Next Station is the first ever sound map of the London Underground. As well as documenting the sounds of the London Underground, by remixing and reimagining every sound it creates an alternative sound world based on the experience and memory of the iconic Tube.
Oblique Strategies sees sound artists all over the world reinterpret and reimagine field recordings, using Eno and Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies cards as creative inspiration for their reworking of the original source sound.
Observatory Station is a global collaborative project that reflects on the relationship between sound and place, between reality and imagination – using sound to collect snapshots of places and times all over the world as part of a unique new sound installation.
The sounds were presented as an installation by sound artist Miyu Hosoi at the Barbican Centre in London as part of its Feel the Sound multi-sensory exhibition experience.
Obsolete Sounds is the world’s biggest collection of disappearing sounds and sounds that have become extinct – remixed and reimagined to create a brand new form of listening.
What happens if you present dozens of different artists with the same field recording to use as inspiration and sonic raw material?
The result, as documented here, is a staggering array of diverse and beautiful interpretations of the same moment in space and time – Rome, Italy, 1 June 2017.
The Orange Garden shows the range and depth of creativity that just a single field recording can provide, when different artists apply their individual perspectives, experiences and talents to it.
Polar Sounds is a unique project reimagining some of the little-heard sounds of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, reflecting on climate change and the evolving sounds of the polar seascapes.
The project is a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).
Prison Songs recomposes and reimagines recordings taken from the Mississippi State Penitentiary during the 1950s.
No sounds define the age we’re living in more clearly than protest sounds – and Protest and Politics is the world’s first global mapping of the sounds of protest and demonstration.
Sacred Spaces examines the crucial role sound has played in our spiritual and religious lives for thousands of years, and explores the sonic similarities between different religions, and different types of sacred space from across the world.
Shortwave radio is one of the most fascinating sonic worlds – capturing vital moments in world history as well as the thrill of pirate radio, clandestine radio stations, secretive number stations, military and spy radio.
All of humanity is out there to be listened to at the turn of a dial – and it’s been remixed and reimagined in the Shortwave Transmissions project, in partnership with the Shortwave Radio Archive.
The Smithsonian Treasures project sees sound artists and musicians all over the world producing a series of compositions inspired by individual works from the Smithsonian collection, the world’s largest museum complex – reimagining images and scenes of history, art, science and culture through sound.
Sonic Heritage is the first collection of the sounds of the world’s most famous sights.
The project presents the sounds of 270 UNESCO World Heritage sites and items of intangible heritage – all reimagined by artists from around the world to create a brand new way of experiencing these spaces.
A partnership with Exodus Adventure Travels to mark their 50th anniversary with a very special project exploring the world of adventure through sound.
The Sound of Adventure is a global exploration in sound of the sense of adventure you feel when experiencing a place for the first time.
What is the relationship between photography and sound? In today’s visually-dominated culture, how can we use sound to respond to what we see around us?
Sound Photography is the biggest ever worldwide artistic interaction between photographers and sound artists, covering 34 countries and six continents with sound pieces inspired by photographs.
Sounding Nature is the biggest ever global exploration of the beautiful sounds of nature, covering 55 countries with almost 500 sounds. The sounds have been reimagined by 250 artists to reflect upon the damage being done to our natural world by human-generated sounds.
Space is the Place marks the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings with a unique collection of sounds spanning the history of space travel – all remixed and reimagined by artists around the world to ask “what does space sound like?”. Take a journey into the real and reimagined sounds of space.
Three Words invites artists to use the power of words to reimagine the sounds of the world.
This project invites artists to use what3words identifiers as artistic inspiration, using them as a set of “found instructions” to reimagine a sound – like location-based Oblique Strategies cards.
Until We Travel is the biggest ever showcase of the sounds of travel from all over the world.
As Venice marked its 1,600th anniversary on 25 March 2021, our Venezia 1600 project celebrated the incredible soundscapes of the most unique-sounding city on Earth.
Ways of Listening is a unique global project asking you to share your answer to one simple question – “What does listening mean to you?”
The project is a partnership between Cities and Memory and The Evelyn Glennie Foundation to raise awareness of the critical importance of listening in all its forms, and the benefits that better listening can bring to us all.
Well-Being Cities is a unique collaboration between Cities and Memory and C40, a global network of mayors of nearly 100 world-leading cities collaborating to deliver the urgent action needed right now to confront the climate crisis.
Artists reimagined field recordings from 36 countries around the world to develop brand new compositions on the theme of sustainability, equity and well-being in cities.
Yellowstone is a deep exploration of the world’s most famous national park.
Its incredible sounds – from geysers to grizzly bears – have been reimagined by artists around the world to create a whole new sonic world.
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"As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. A description of [the city] as it is today should contain all [the city's] past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the bags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls."
- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Grand Prix winner and Coup de Coeur winner, Académie Charles Cros
