Chris Watson & Izabela Dłużyk present Białowieża

Chris Watson is one of the UK's most celebrated sound recordists. Not only was he a founding member of Sheffield's influential Cabaret Voltaire and The Hafler Trio, but he's been developing his ear for field recording since the early '80s, working extensively for the BBC on numerous nature shows. As a solo artist, he's helped figure out a space between documentary and fantasy, collaborating with artists like BJ Nilsen, Z'EV, KK Null and Philip Jeck.

When Izabela Dłużyk was only 12 years old, she started recording bird noises on her cassette recorder. She was born without sight, and trained her hearing to focus on sounds many of us might ignore, eventually embarking on a career as a nature sound recordist that would culminate in 2023 with a BBC documentary that detailed her process and philosophy. That same year, she was the only Polish woman to appear on the BBC's 100 Women list, acknowledged for her in-depth observations of birds like whooper swans, cranes and cormorants.

Together they created a new commissioned work based on field recordings made at Puszcza Białowieska, Europe's last remaining primaeval forest, on the border between Poland and Belarus. In recent years the forest has become a contentious place, initially due to logging that occurred there during the PiS government. Since late 2021, scores of migrants have died within the forest attempting to cross from Belarus to Poland and the EU, pushed back by Polish border guards. The natural sounds of Puszcza Białowieska have therefore taken on more shadowy layers of meaning.

Conducted in darkness, the live show also evokes Izabela’s experience of the world as a sightless person, where her perception of sound is heightened.

Commissioned by TIMES* – the Independent Movement for Electronic Scenes.

*TIMES (The Independent Movement for Electronic Scenes) is a cooperation project that gathers 10 festivals for original music and visual arts’ creations. Besides sharing curations (artists and speakers) and TIMES’ original creations, the cooperation aims at working together for a better respect of both people and planet in the music sector. TIMES is a collaboration between Arty Farty/Nuits sonores (FR), Berlin Atonal (DE), Elevate (AT), Insomnia (NO), Le Guess Who? (NL), Semibreve (PT), Reworks (GR), Sónar (ES), Terraforma (IT), Unsound (PL) and our audiovisual partner Creative Broadcast (RO). This cooperation is built on the previous project We are Europe (2014-2020). Co-funded by European Union.