NYC Youth Audio Tour Workshop (2022-
Imagine a New York City dotted with place-based youth-produced audio stories
Walking tours and audio tours have been a fixture of the tourism and arts/culture industries for decades. Most often, they serve to educate and enhance the experience of visitors to a place. But what else can they do? More and more, self-guided experiences like sound walks and audio tours have deviated from their tourism roots to offer opportunities for memory activism, civic education, and creative experimentation. While the tourism industry may boast tours and experiences as “a definitive guide” or “the ultimate walking tour” or “an authentic taste of X,” this thinking is reductive and only serves marketing goals.
Inspired by my experience producing The Albina Soul Walk in Portland, I began developing curriculum for a 6-8 week audio tour workshop for high school students during a summer 2022 IMA class called “Documentary and/as? Pedagogy.” As a Social Practice CUNY Actionist Fellow, I have continued refining the curriculum while looking for NYC partners during my fellowship year (2022-2023). I am also exploring ways to adapt the curriculum to shorter time periods and other parts of the world.
Course Description
If you were to take someone on a tour of your neighborhood, what would you want them to see? Who would you want them to meet? Is there anything you wouldn’t want them to see? How has your neighborhood changed since you’ve lived there?
Over two months of mostly in-person classes, workshops and field trips, students will plan their own audio tours of their neighborhoods, choosing the stops and creating the content users will experience. Students will use audio field recorders to record interviews and soundscapes. They’ll learn to edit multitrack audio projects and build their walks using ECHOES, a map-based software and app allowing for user-friendly creation of GPS-triggered sound walks. Students will offer feedback to their peers as tours are tested and fine-tuned. Toward the end of the semester, each student will also plan and promote a site-specific release event for their respective walks.
Learning Outcomes: students will…
Plan and build a geolocated sound walk using the ECHOES Sound Walks web and mobile application
Critically examine the tourism industry, making connections to the impacts of settler colonialism, redlining, gentrification, and digital nomadism
Conduct and record interviews in the field
Edit audio using the Hindenburg audio editor
Participate in constructive critique of fellow students’ creative work
Plan and promote a public event to mark the release of their project
Learn from and converse with visiting socially-engaged artists