While You Wait

Sound Installation at The Railway Hub, Stroud Railway Station 7th-8th September 2019

For Cotswold Canals Connected in Wool & Water Festival

“While You Wait” is a collaborative sound installation created as a collaboration between Tara Downs (Miniature Museum/Radio Droogdok) and  Jo Leahy (SVA/Resound Radio).   This installation formed part of a series of community-led exhibitions within the Wool and Water festival over the 7th and 8th of September – celebrating canal and textile heritage through work by local artists and community creatives.

On May 4th-5th Cotswold Canals Connected put on a Canal Trail event, that started and ended at the Railway Hub, leading people along the canal by foot and boat to Stonehouse, where they could take the train back to Stroud.  Under the Radio Droogdok flag, Tara and Jo captured essences of the day: collecting sounds along the towpath, stories and memories of the canal, conversations about its use and transformation, events along the way as told by community voices and people involved. These have been edited to a collection reflecting the Canal Trail route from railway hub, along the canal and back again, for the Wool & Water event.

Visitors over the weekend could relax in the Radio Droogdok installation pop-up in the Railway Hub – and listen in armchairs to these ‘While You Wait’ ‘slow radio’ style recordings and mixes.

The Railway Hub  on Platform 2 of  Stroud Railway Station was formerly a waiting room/ticket office.  This event opened it’s doors for the weekend as part of an exciting new development of adapting it as a community space led by Creative Sustainability.

Miniature Museum has an evolving partnership with The Cotswold Canals Trust and Stroudwater Navigation Archive Charity, towards creating community engaged interactive interpretation:  the ‘Water’ cabinet has come out on different occasions to engage visitors with the heritage of the Stroud waters, and we’ve delivered community presentations and workshops in schools. This new branch of gathering audio offers recordings to become a part of oral history archives, and may become content for future exhibits/interpretation.  Some mixes will be available online on Radio Droogdok and Resound Radio at a later date.