Ten Acres of Sound

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Ten Acres of Sound was a festival of noise, sound, sonic art, music, performance, whatever located within Stirchley, Birmingham. Artists were invited to make site-responsive works to be exhibited throughout the area and performers were asked to bring their work from all over Stirchley as a series of gigs or street events.

It was initially intended to go ahead in April 2020 but had to be postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Adapting to new conditions, it now takes the form of online, outdoor and postal events, with installations still in some venues in Stirchley.

While much of Stirchley is still closed and under partial lock-down, the festival still consists of 6 site-responsive works, ranging from soundwalks to megaphone installations; 9 online performances from Birmingham artists and beyond; 5 workshops, where residents of Stirchley or further afield can take part in group sound-making, try out different recording techniques or make their own instruments. Alongside this we have a radio hour to showcase the rich outputs of all the artists and musicians involve and featuring interviews with them all and a special edition of our local quiz based entirely on noise.

Ten Acres of Sound was devised by Artefact Projects, a co-operative artspace on the high street of Stirchley, and aimed at aligning concerns around gentrification, locality, climate justice and social relations. The work actually presented in this new re-worked festival has a more or less oblique or implicit relationship to these concerns. The aim of this website is to present as much as possible of what was originally intended for the festival in its transfigured, documented and digitised format.