Isle of Sound is the first artwork created for the new Creative Isle Community Rail Partnership, a new initiative by Turner Contemporary in collaboration with Thanet District Council and support from Southeastern. The CICRP aims to work with local communities and artists, to engage with their local stations and the rail network through developing creative interventions at the stations. The partnership cover’s the line and all seven stations on the route in Thanet – Birchington-on-Sea, Westgate-on-Sea, Margate, Broadstairs, Dumpton Park, Ramsgate, and Minster.  

Isle of Sound aims to celebrate the sonic diversity and uniqueness of different parts of Thanet. Emily Peasgood has created a unique soundscape for each of the 7 Thanet train stations, with sounds familiar to each Thanet town contributing to the composition. Each soundscape has been composed using field recordings and sounds recorded and submitted by community groups local to each of the stations, with over 100 people from across the Isle attending online workshops with Emily to develop and record sounds to contribute to the project. Each of the 7 compositions form one masterwork which can be heard on the Turner Contemporary website. 

Community Groups and individuals submitted recordings from all over Thanet, all of which have found their way into Emily’s compositions. Featured in the Broadstairs composition is Art & Design Students from Broadstairs College who used their musical intuition to explore the sonic landscape of Broadstairs College, recording sounds of daily life on their campus, each student received ongoing individual feedback from Emily. These sessions formed part of their module in sound recording. Emily Peasgood then used these recordings to feature in the soundscape for Broadstairs station. Scan the QR code to hear the full Isle of Sound composition. 

With thanks to Southeastern, Thanet District Council, Turner Contemporary and the community groups who participated in the project. 

Engineered by Geoffrey Papin

Speaker design by Trevor Missen

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As part of Isle of Sound, Peasgood worked with game designer Jim Hall to create an Isle of Sound Music Player which invites listeners to select and layer each part of the work to see how they fit together to form Isle of Sound. Check out the Soundcloud below to listen to the full composition.