Wetland Project

"The Wetland Project is a beautiful, quietly amazing work of micro-post-geographical art that allows us to be wherever we are and somewhere wonderfully natural and real, simultaneously. It’s an experience I wish everyone could have, and I wish there were more experiences like it."
—William Gibson

The Wetland Project book is the print component of a multidisciplinary and multimedia project centred on the sounds emanating from the ṮEḴTEḴSEN marsh, in unceded W̱SÁNEĆ territory (Saturna Island, British Columbia). The book is edited by artists Brady Marks and Mark Timmings, who have been inspired by the sonic phenomena produced by this small patch of Earth to create a 24-hour Slow Radio Broadcast, based on field recordings from the marsh, that radio stations across North America and Europe have aired on Earth Day since 2017; a musical arrangement titled Wetland Senario, co-composed with Stephen Morris and performed by vocal ensemble musica intima; and a new media installation that algorithmically transforms sound frequencies from the marsh recordings into pure colour fields in flux.

Contributors to the book include novelist William Gibson, MP and former Green Party leader Elizabeth May, poet and spoken-word performer Susan McMaster, musicologist Stephen Morris, writer Alex Muir, poet and W̱SÁNEĆ First Nation member Philip Kevin Paul, Stó:lō artist, curator, and scholar Dylan Robinson, sound artist and World Soundscape Project member Hildegaard Westerkamp, and curator, writer, and PhD student Laurie White. The algorithmic flow of colour fields throughout the publication combined with photos of the project and an audio interface accessed using smartphones and tablet devices will give the book a colourful, music box-like quality.

Awarded first prize in the pictorial category at the 2022 Alcuin Awards for Excellence in Book Design.