Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

“We have all known the comfort of hearing the voice of a loved one we are separated from. Due to Covid19 this is now a national and global experience, felt every single day. But what if there’s a different kind of voice you’ve missed, one belonging to a place?”

Myself (Theatre Maker Charlotte Lewis) and my collaborator (Documentary Filmmaker Sam Irving) have creatively engaged with this ongoing historical moment to make a new form of heightened podcast. We’ve blended narrative techniques from theatre, documentary and podcasting with immersive binaural (3D) sound design, this piece is both firmly rooted in the Welsh outdoors, whilst also existing as something audiences can digitally access worldwide through headphones.

Over 3 chapters, [Mountains, Rivers, Coastlines] we have invited collaborators to write their love letter to an iconic Welsh landscape. Our contributors are diverse; from poets, writers and sound artists, to land-locked surfers and grounded cave-explorers, they have all shared their varied and fascinating stories of separation. When these places we love so dearly feel so uniquely and abruptly inaccessible, we’ve posed the question; what are we bursting to say?

Through sound design we’ve also worked to echo the environment in which these stories were first born. By taking high quality environmental recordings and mapping that digitally into 3D soundscapes, we have remotely collaborated to create a heightened listening experience that playfully disrupts the perceptions of the listener. This sonic journey teleports isolated audiences to new landscapes, in order to feel spaciousness, and experience adventure, even if that is only in their mind’s eye- sitting on the curb outside their front door!

Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder permits unique access to an intimate relationship: opening a window into the soulful connection between landscape and estranged lover.

Supported by Arts Council Wales and The National Lottery