In a response to these troubled times, Artichoke invites you to join us in digital space with a specially-curated new sound work. 

Click here to listen to the new Peace Camp soundscape

As the pandemic struck and lockdown loomed, we thought about how we could make a work that transcended our confined existence and take us to another time and place. We approached composer Mel Mercier to work with us on a new edition of his mesmerising soundscape originally made for Peace Camp, Deborah Warner’s commission for the London 2012 festival, made in collaboration with Fiona Shaw and produced by Artichoke.

Peace Camp was a UK-wide coastal installation celebrating love, poetry and landscape. Eight murmuring, glowing encampments appeared simultaneously at some of Great Britain and the north of Ireland’s most beautiful and remote coastal locations, from County Antrim to the tip of Cornwall.

Featuring an ever-shifting tapestry of love poetry from across the centuries interweaved with natural sound and recorded in the five languages of our islands, this immersive new recording transports listeners to a sonic landscape where for 60 meditative minutes the world holds still.

The soundscape includes extracts of poetry by William Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, Nick Cave, Ted Hughes and Carol Ann Duffy performed by actors including Fiona Shaw, Anne-Marie Duff, Eileen Atkins, Ted Hughes, Jonathan Pryce, Ioan Gruffudd, Angela Lansbury, Bill Paterson, Alun Armstrong and others.  

Click here to read our interview with Mel Mercier

Peace Camp at Cemaes Bay, Anglesey, July 2012. Peace Camp is created by Deborah Warner in collaboration with Fiona Shaw. Soundscape by Mel Mercier. Sound design by John Del' Nero. Produced by Artichoke. Photo by Pete Carr.