Re-Sounding Poetries: Collections, Classrooms, Communities
In May of 2025, members of the SpokenWeb SSHRC Partnership came together at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, BC for the partnership's final annual Sound Institute, entitled Re-Sounding Poetries: Collections, Classrooms, Communities. For four days, poets and professors, archivists and artists, librarians and researchers, and creatives of all stripes came together for a "summer camp" of immersive literary audio experiences. Information about the Institute and its schedule can be found here.
SpokenWeb UAlberta in 360°
As part of the SpokenWeb Collections Showcase, where each institution was invited to creatively present on their team's collection, the University of Alberta SpokenWeb team presented a 360° video (sometimes referred to as a virtual reality or VR video) entitled SpokenWeb UAlberta in 360°.
SpokenWeb UAlberta in 360° is a fusion of past and present technology. Literary recordings from the 1960s-80s are played on a 1960s Sony TC-102 portable reel-to-reel tape player, in the same Edmonton locations where they were originally recorded decades earlier. This 360° video was recorded using an Insta360 X4 camera and a Zoom H3-VR ambisonic mic, and can be viewed using a VR headset to visually and sonically place the viewer inside the recorded moment.
Created by Natasha D'Amours and Sarah Freeman for the 2025 SpokenWeb Symposium, with assistance from Michael O’Driscoll, Sean Luyk, Michael MacKenzie, Xuege Wu, Robert Montgomery at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, and Courtney Higgins at the Art Gallery of Alberta.
Watch the video, with added annotations, here.
Listen to the full audio of each recording played in this video:
- Dorothy Livesay at University of Alberta, 1974 (Humanities Center L-3)
- F.R. Scott, Stephen Scobie, and Dorothy Livesay at University of Alberta, 1971 (Students’ Union Building)
- The Bards of March at University of Alberta, 1986 Part I and Part II (Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium)
- Poet and Critic: Plenary Readings at Edmonton Art Gallery, 1969 (Art Gallery of Alberta)
The SpokenWeb UAlberta in 360° video was also presented by the SpokenWeb team in October 2025, as part of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH) inaugural Celebration of Research event. Read more about the event here.
SpokenWeb Virtual Audio Experience
As part of the SpokenWeb UAlberta in 360° project, Sarah Freeman created the SpokenWeb Virtual Audio Experience brochure, which can be viewed here.
SpokenWeb Manifesto 2025
At the end of the Sound Institute, the SpokenWeb team came together to record a manifesto. Loosely using the prompt SpokenWeb is..., each attendee was invited to share a thought, a feeling, a micro-poem — any expression of their feelings about SpokenWeb and the past seven years of the partnership.