‘From the Edges: Salford’s Hidden Landscapes’

‘From the Edges’ is an immersive audiovisual installation by composer and sound artist Simon Connor and photographer and filmmaker Andrew Brooks, commissioned by the University of Salford Art Collection. The work explores the shifting spaces where the city of Salford meets its green and wild landscapes.

Using multi-camera systems and spatial field recording techniques, Brooks and Connor have explored the woodlands, waterways, routes and ruins of industry that trace the city’s outskirts. Audiences move through these environments from multiple visual perspectives, immersed in a 360-degree soundscape. The soundtrack blends environmental recordings with instrumental composition to create a richly textured sonic landscape. Drawing on slow cinema and soundscape composition, the installation unfolds at an unhurried pace, encouraging deep listening and attentive looking.

Presented in small groups within the University of Salford’s New Adelphi recording studios, ‘From the Edges’ is experienced via an immersive sound system and multi-screen display. This layered audiovisual environment offers an intimate encounter with the landscapes that surround and weave through the city.

Simon Connor is a composer and sound artist whose practice blends environmental sound with musical instrumentation to create immersive experiences of place. His music has been performed internationally and featured on BBC Radio 3, and his collaborative work with filmmaker Huw Wahl has been described by The Guardian as a “feast for the ears and eyes.” He is a lecturer in Music Technology at the University of Salford.

Andrew Brooks is a filmmaker, photographer and digital artist specialising in immersive approaches to landscape and urban environments. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including ‘The Songs the Morning Sang’, a collaboration with poet Ian McMillan. ‘From the Edges’ marks Andrew’s return to SFTOC following earlier visual and installation work for the festival.