Podcast 20 - Swimming With Dolphins by Hear Us O Lord

'Hear Us O Lord From Heaven Thy Dwelling Place' is a two-year AHRC-funded project that brings together artists, musicians, academics, environmentalists and the public at sea between Liverpool and the Isle of Man to reflect on some short stories of Malcolm Lowry(1909-57) in relation to increased care for our oceans.

Through these podcasts, you will hear comment, new ideas, strange sounds, beach cleaning, poetry, children's voices and moments of calm as we all try to find a new audio language for thinking about the amount of plastic in our seas. Our podcasts are intentionally collaged to open up new spaces for shared thinking - see www.malcolmlowry.com for further information.

Some of the contributors you'll hear include Alan Dunn (Lead Investigator, Leeds Beckett University), Helen Tookey (Co-Investigator, Liverpool John Moores University), Bryan Biggs (Bluecoat), The Art Doctors (Liz Stirling and Alison McIntyre), Roger Cliffe-Thompson (Mariner's Park), Rob Keith (former Shell sea captain), Cian Quayle (University of Chester / Isle of Man), Louise K. Wilson (University of Leeds), Chris Watson, BAD PUNK / Band of Holy Joy (James Stephen Finn & Johny Brown), Ian Murphy (Merseyside Maritime Museum), Jessica Van Horssen (Leeds Beckett University), Sarah Hymas, Paul Ratcliff, Olga Munroe (The Retail Institute), Ben Parry, David Jacques, Hannah Dargavel-Leafe, Matt Green (Leeds Beckett University), Kristina Nenova and Frankie Mazzotta.

Podcast 20 ‘Swimming with dolphins’ - The Art Doctors were invited to do some wild swimming in the south of the island before joining the group afterwards to capture on two microphones – with full consent – excited chatter about swimming with dolphins, increased awareness of seasons, the particular Isle of Man uses for plastic buckets, freezing surf, Niarbyl beach and sea pollution. Backing track c/o Sam Mitchell.

Hear people listening to each other and let’s think about listening to our surrounds and non-human animals too. There are 95 miles of Isle of Man coastline with good numbers of pollack, bass, cuckoo wrasse, grey mullet, mackerel, Norway lobster, hermit crabs, queen scallops and dog cockles. As Lowry writes in the 1950s “tiny slender pale turquoise starfish, fat violet ones, and vermilion sunstars with twenty pointed arms like children’s paintings of the sun; barnacles kicking food into their mouths, polyps and sea-anemones, sea-cucumbers two feet long like orange dragons with spikes and horns.” Let’s listen to the sounds of these words, the words of swimmers and the sounds of our surrounds.