Where: Oldham Art Gallery

When: 1998

Boomtown is quite a pivotal work for me. Created for the 150th anniversary of the borough of Oldham, it was a multichannel installation designed to accompany an exhibition about the 19th Century Radical movement and ran at the old Oldham Art Gallery for six months. Archive interviews are used alongside industrial sounds to examine the personal and social histories of some of the town’s inhabitants. It launched my personal interest in oral history and spoken word in sonic art. It also introduced a way of working with space in which the movement of the audience determines their experience. Individual stories are located in small speakers around the room allowing each audience member to focus on individual narratives while simultaneously being aware of the whole. This draws attention to the personal experiences of the speakers, while positioning their stories within a wider context of social history. This is a stereo mix of the 8 channel original.