The Absence
Sound & Image by Sarah Ledjmi
I’ve been walking a lot around my neighbourhood since the lockdown started. On my walks I’ve started noticing items of children clothing, peppered around along river banks, wooden paths and empty streets. I live across the woods, and I’ve been hearing children playing these last few weeks – it’s a nice change as the woods are usually very quiet. I chose to record the sounds of children in the woods in the knowledge that although my recording captured their voices, my sound postcard wouldn’t. I know that their laughs and screams would ‘disappear’ in the process of being translated from such a low-fi medium to another. If I listen hard, will I find them there? Will they live a trace behind, like the lost pieces of clothing I keep seeing on my walks? I’ve called this piece the absence, because I’ve been reminded of the children that have disappeared from my day to day life: the school kids that aren’t coming to the museum at this time, and my two friends whose pregnancies I haven’t been able to see progress.
