On Sonorous Seas

This podcast reacts to a beaching of a whale in August 2018 at Traigh an t-Suidhe/Strand of the Seat, at the North end of the Isle of Iona, Scotland. Different interviewees discuss how similar occurrences throughout the ages have shaped and impacted the local community.

The project was led by visual artist and resident of the Isle of Iona, Mhairi Killin with composer Fergus Hall – in collaboration with artist Tom deMajo of Biome Collective, poet Miek Zwamborn, calligrapher Susie Leiper and in partnership with the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust.

On Sonorous Seas gives voice to what is not apparent beneath the beauty of the Hebridean waters. Finding out why the whale had died led Mhairi on a journey into the overlay of two cryptic environments; the habitats of the military and the habitats of deep diving whales. The podcast interrogates the power of, and reliance on, sound as a survival tool for both the whales and the military, and the complex relationship between the militarisation of Scotland’s seas and their existing ecosystems.