Concealed Spaces

Full description

Research Background

Concealed Spaces extends my long-term investigation into how sound and image can reveal the hidden dimensions of built and natural environments. Informed by contemporary practices such as Christina Kubisch’s investigations of hidden electromagnetic infrastructures and Jana Winderen’s ecological listening, the project mobilises recording and perceptual strategies as tools of inquiry. This approach situates sonic practice within debates around perception, infrastructure, and ecological precarity, asking how subterranean and alpine architectures embody cultural memory, ideology, and human–environment relations.

Research Significance

By directing attention to concealed infrastructures—bunkers, dams, shelters, and industrial sites—the project contributes to broader discourses on how environments are shaped by secrecy, surveillance, and civil protection. Through immersive recording, deep listening, and photographic documentation, Concealed Spaces captures the acoustic, spatial, and material qualities of sites that often remain inaccessible or overlooked. The work highlights latent histories embedded in these architectures while interrogating their ongoing cultural, political, and ecological resonance.

Research Contribution

The project generates new artistic works that advance the methodological use of sound as both a mode of inquiry and expression, offering transferable approaches for artists and researchers engaging with fragile ecologies and contested infrastructures. Its significance is evidenced by support from the Creative Australia International Engagement Fund, the Verbier 3-D Foundation, and the Valais School of Art, and by its premiere commissioned by ANAT for the RECIPROCITY Festival. Together, these outcomes establish Concealed Spaces as a high-quality, internationally recognised project that strengthens Swiss–Australian cultural exchange while positioning Australian sound art within global conversations on ecology, geopolitics, and hidden architectures.