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Listening with China Blue

Listening with China Blue

by China Blue

Arts Mental Health

Listening to the World: Stuart Fowkes on Field Recording, Sound Mapping & Cities and Memory

Field recording, sound mapping, and soundscape storytelling are transforming how we experience the world. In this episode of Listening with China Blue, I speak with Stuart Fowkes, founder of Cities and Memory, one of the world's largest collaborative sound projects, bringing together more than 2,500 artists who remix the world one sound at a time. Since 2014, Stuart has built an extraordinary global archive of field recordings and creative reinterpretations from more than 100 countries. What began as a simple idea—to pair an original environmental recording with an artistic remix—has evolved into an international community exploring memory, place, culture, and listening through sound. Our conversation explores what makes a meaningful field recording, how sound mapping can preserve disappearing acoustic environments, and why listening deeply to everyday places can change how we understand our communities. We discuss the creative relationship between documentation and imagination, the ethics of recording public spaces, and the role of artists in building a shared sonic memory of the planet. Whether you're interested in field recording, acoustic ecology, sound art, environmental storytelling, podcasting, or simply becoming a better listener, this conversation offers an inspiring look at how sound connects us across cultures and geography.

Listening with Vero Faye Kitsuné, C Z A R I N A Musician

China Blue speaks with musician Vero Faye Kitsuné who goes by the name C Z A R I N A about how as an indigenous Filipino shamanism, the grandeur of nature and Spain's witches inspired listening for the Dark Wave. Vero Faye Kitsuné is an American award-winning electronic artist, producer, and filmmaker based in Galicia, Spain, she is known for a darkwave/industrial sound inspired by cyberpunk and anime, she creates synth-heavy, cinematic music.

Listening with Timothy Blunk, Activist

China Blue speaks with Timothy Blunk a former US political prisoner who served over 13 years in some of America’s most notorious prisons for his activism in resistance to racism, US support for apartheid in South Africa, and involvement in Central America during the 1980s. His prison term included 7 years in solitary confinement in USP Marion. Tim appeared on the television program “20/20” documenting the campaign against Marion’s use of solitary confinement as a form torture. His case was recognized and documented by both Amnesty International and US Human Rights Watch. #listening #podcasts #Activism #solitaryconfinment

Listening with Richard Vine, Art Critic

Internationally recognized art critic Richard Vine, PhD is the former managing editor of Art in America who has taught throughout the world and has produced more than three hundred art articles. His books Range from the career survey of "Odd Nerdrum: Paintings, Sketches, and Drawings" and "New China, New Art," which traces the emergence of avant-garde art in post-Mao China to the crime novel "SoHo Sins," set in the New York art world of the 1990s. He has also co-curated exhibitions at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing; the National Academy of Art in New Delhi, India, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York. China Blue speaks to Mr. Vine about his early life listening to his Welsh grandfather, being at the 1970 Kent State shooting and about acclaimed Chinese artists Gu Wenda and activist Ai Weiwei and the renown architect Zaha Hadid.

Listening with Martha Little, Podcast & Audio Consultant

Listen to Martha Little, a podcast and audio consultant who speaks about listening to others and how compassion can be contagious. Martha Little is an award-winning journalist and executive audio producer whose career has spanned more than 35 years at organizations such as NPR and Amazon’s Audible. Today, Little leads LittleMedia, a creative consultancy that helps companies and individuals elevate their storytelling. Her latest passion project explores the transformative power of empathic listening, unlocking deeper human connection and communication in both personal and professional spaces. She is also fortunate enough to have a son who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia who has taught her the importance of deep listening and compassion in improving mental health.

Listening with Richard Humann, Artist

Next on Listening with China Blue is Richard Humann who speaks about his exhibition based on bone music currently up in New York City and listening for a revolution. Humann is a New York City-based artist who uses a multitude of materials to create installations, sculptures, videos, and sound projects. In his work he delves deep into concepts and ideas like in this case bone music.

Listening with Scott McVay: The Man Who Helped the World Hear Whales Sing

My next guest, Scott McVay, helped the world to hear whales sing for the first time. With his wife Hella, he co-discovered the songs of humpback whales—an underwater symphony that became a vinyl phenomenon in 1970 and forever changed how we listen to the sea. His work on whale songs has appeared in Science and Scientific American, and his books, Whales Sing and Other Exuberances and Surprise Encounters, capture a lifetime of listening in deep kinship with the living world.

Listening with Ellen Waterman, Professor of Music and Sound Studies

In "Listening with China Blue" hear from Ellen Waterman a Professor of Music and Sound Studies who states that listening equates to care. Ellen Waterman holds the Helmut Kallmann Chair for Music in Canada at Carleton University. There her interdisciplinary research is wide. As a flutist and vocalist she engages in improvisation, performance ecologies, and Deaf and disability-led music where she realized that listening equates to care. She also forms community-engaged methodologies and explores the potential of listening to create social change.

Listening With Cynthia McVay, Author

In "Listening with China Blue" hear from Cynthia McVay the author of "A Field of My Own: A Memoir of Place" who tells about how listening connects to place. McVay is a lifelong creative and environmentalist who chronicles her intimate, two-decade relationship with a flagging orchard in the Hudson Valley. As an architect and general contractor, you will hear how she moved an enormous 180-year-old hand-hewn Amish barn to the property to make her sustainable home, as she dealt with snarky contractors, a tippling partner, puzzling neighbors, concerning caretakers, black rat snakes and coyote chases. Yet, each day brings her joy and serenity. You will hear about her acoustic memoirs of place that begin in the country: the Hudson Valley, in New York City and on the island St. Croix.

Listening With Ron Whitehead, US National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate

In "Listening with China Blue" hear from the US National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate, Ron Whitehead who says "Listening is the greatest art of all" Whitehead is a poet, author and runs the non-profit organization Global Literary Renaissance, to support literature worldwide. He teaches, and collaborates with artists and musicians focusing primarily on the Louisville art scene and Kentucky folk art. Whitehead was also the honorary poetry editor of GonzoToday. Whitehead who has authored thirty titles was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice, and nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He published a book of poems titled The View From Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Bathroom Window and collaborated with Ferlinghetti the poet and founder of City Lights Booksellers on other projects. Ferlinghetti called him the "Bodhisattva in Kentucky"

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