I’ve lived in a few cities, renting apartments in Hyderabad and Pune as I moved for school and work, and each place carried its own soundprint. In Hyderabad, I had a penthouse near a mosque, and the azaan, called out five times a day, became a familiar rhythm that stitched my days together. In Pune, the elevator right outside my door would clatter open and shut all day; a mundane, almost mechanical part of life, yet in a strange way, it marked that time and place in my memory. These sounds were the modalities through which those spaces were etched into my experience and memory, becoming the bookmarks in the chapters of my like. They formed an almost invisible layer of memory, an imprint of where I was and who I was at those times. And it’s this phenomenon of sound as a marker of space and self that sound artist and producer Anandit Sachdev explores in 'A Sonic Archaeology of Connaught Place'.
The project captures the layered identity of Connaught Place, Delhi’s central hub, by creating a sonic map that examines the elements of time and space embedded within its sounds. Between October 2023 and January 2024, the artist collected an array of field recordings from across Connaught Place, capturing moments in time that reveal the buried stories within the city’s architecture and urban landscape. This soundscape, much like an archaeological dig, surfaces the subtle but essential connections between the sensory experience of sound and the way we perceive and remember spaces.
Through Anandir’s lens, Connaught Place’s sounds are more than incidental background noise. They are sonic artifacts, each holding a unique resonance of urban memory and cultural context. The project reframes these recordings into ten thematic soundtracks, each based on the distinct qualities of sound at specific locations, such as the echo of voices in the arcades or the hum of evening traffic. These tracks reveal the 'noise' of Connaught Place as something complex and multifaceted, combining history, selfhood, and the temporal flow of the space.
Visitors to “The Past Has a Home in the Future” exhibition at the Dhoomimal Gallery, curated by Jackfruit Research and Design, can experience Sachdev’s auditory journey firsthand. Running from November 7 to December 7, this exhibition presents Connaught Place as a crucible of culture, politics, and art, merging its historical and contemporary narratives. Anandit's work in this exhibition offers visitors a journey into the heart of Connaught Place through music, where each soundscape, tagged with QR codes across multiple spots in the area, allows listeners to tune into the precise location where each recording was captured.
By experiencing these recordings in the places where they originated, visitors encounter the spatiotemporal qualities of Connaught Place in an intimate and personal way. This 'sonic archaeology' invites listeners to perceive both the vastness and the intricate details of Connaught Place, exploring how sound transforms familiar spaces and expands our understanding of cultural memory. These tracks enable them to reflect on the subjectivity of space and time; how each is coloured by social, cultural, and historical influences, offering a personal narrative unique to those who encounter it.
Follow Anandit here and listen to A Sonic Archaeology of Connaught Place below.
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