Soundwalking Activity

Prompts and questions to guide your soundwalk.

A photo of the soundwalk, anonymized

We selected four sites around McMaster University to visit during our soundwalk.

Each participating group, led by a facilitator, visited the sites in different orders. We designed our questions to scaffold throughout the soundwalk, beginning with initial thoughts and reflections and extending to more critical, internal observations about the absence of sounds, expected sounds, belonging, and out-of-placeness.

Participants were invited to use their soundwalking map to take field notes, and record their observations, experiences and insights at each site. In their field notes, our participants included written notes, drawings, diagrams, and more.

Groups were made up of about 6-8 participants.

We spent approximately 5 minutes at each site and accounted for 5 minutes to travel between sites.

Soundwalking Questions by Site

Site One: If you’ve been here before, put yourself in the shoes of someone who has not been here. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?

Site Two: Write what you hear and don’t hear and what it makes you feel.

Site Three: What do you have to strain to hear? What sounds are missing?

Site Four: What sounds feel “out of place”? Why? What sounds do you think should be heard instead?

A photo of the soundwalking map used at McMaster Soundwalking Map designed by Tram Nguyen.