Full transcript text
My name is Naomi Rae Wharton and you are listening to A World With. I’m a community leader and writer from North West London and in today’s episode I will be adding transport soundscapes.
I am of Caribbean heritage, Jamaican and St Kittitian and I was born and raised in London, a place full of creativity, culture and community. I’m speaking to you from my flat within a vibrant neighbourhood. From my window I can see the famous Wembley Arch in the horizon, where the echoes of sports fans and music create a crescendo far beyond their doorstep. A canal runs a good stretch behind the blocks, providing opportunities for calm and serenity.
As someone who has spent their life and work interested in design, I’ve always paid close attention to the buildings, sounds and environments around me. And growing up in London I’ve specifically started to notice how people interact with sound.
It has been these observations that have led me to dream and think about the potential of what might happen if we transformed our communal sites and transport structures through sound.
A world with transport soundscapes is an idea to bring a collection of pleasant sounds to our communal journeys to improve our collective health and wellbeing. This could include sounds from nature; sounds of birds and water streams. But it could also include soulful lofi beats and soundbites of laughter - medicine for the heart. Imagine entering the train station and being welcomed by a soundscape of flowing water or a comedy sketch.
I believe that sound and music has the power to shift moods and transform the environments that people live, work, study and play in. It is why I have decided to add a world with transport soundscapes - to provide a sense of ease to everyday hustle culture in big cities and to encourage communities around the world to slow down and reconnect with humans, nature and the environment around them.
But, why is a world with transport soundscapes needed? Statistics show that from city to city, the commute culture varies but for the majority of us, our commutes are characterised by overcrowding, feelings of urgency and time spent looking down at our phones.
Reports are telling us that around the world many of us are experiencing feelings of isolation, individualism and depression and I’ve noticed how much of this we are also experiencing on our commutes.
My desire to add a world with transport soundscapes has been shaped by my own commute, over the last eight years where for the most part, I've experienced daily overcrowding, the every person for themselves attitude and social anxiety.
From trying to practice more mindfulness, reading more on journeys and being more intentional about how I spend my time on my commute, I’ve had to find ways to make this journey more enjoyable, less anxiety inducing and to escape the noise where I can.
There have been moments of small joys, from seeing a rubix cube being done on the train to crocheting on the platform. It’s been a breath of fresh air to observe but it’s made me wonder, what if there was something we could change to improve our collective experiences on public transport - what would our commutes be like with soundscapes?
What excites me about the possibility of a world with transport soundscapes is that it could bring joy, improve mental and emotional wellbeing and help with community connection.
Imagine hearing your favourite podcast, soundbites of stand up comedy or just simple soothing melodies to put your mind at ease? Having a shared interest played outside of your headphones that could spark a conversation and ignite a sense of community? An opportunity for scrolling to become a myth and work to stay at work?
So how can we achieve this? We start by building up an archive of a range of different soundscapes. From calm to lively undertones stacked with voiceovers, melodies from a range of geographical contexts or sounds recorded from nature.
As we build this archive, we could work in partnership with arts organisations to deliver community-led programmes where artists, producers, writers, poets, singers and rappers have the opportunity to contribute to these collective soundscapes. Every week could have a dedicated theme to encourage a new focus and put a spotlight on a different creative. Through this process, a larger ecosystem of creatives would evolve and we’d be able to support more emerging artists.
This experience of listening in community with others would provide a shift - pushing us out of our silos and encouraging us to open our minds to a range of voices, sounds and art forms.
A vital community-benefit of a world with transport soundscapes would be in its potential to facilitate conversations and to spark new interests and curiosities. The act of listening to these collective soundscapes would be an open invitation to share, and to learn from different cultures. This could have a huge impact in bringing greater awareness of people and places and building stronger relationships between us.
Long term, we’d start to see more people becoming digitally fatigued and turning away from social media on their journeys. We’d see less over consumption and see a shift towards more positive social behaviour in communities and physiological wellbeing of individuals.
In short, I believe a world with transport soundscapes has the potential to elevate moods, provide more joyful commutes, create connections, cultivate community and reduce social anxiety.
I can’t wait to hear what else we’ll add in the next episode. Thanks for listening!
