Intergenerational Soundwalking: Building Bridges and Community

This article describes site-specific soundwalking as a research-creation intervention that builds opportunities for intergenerational connection. Participants living in a common geographical area explored a particular bridge, its soundscape and oral history. The Avoca Bridge, located in a rural community in Quebec’s (Canada) Lower Laurentians, is the materialization of commonality between members of different generations as they cross over the Rouge River. During the fall of 2023, the author and artist-scholar, led a research-creation intervention with five older adults and one teenage participant, during which they were introduced to amplified and deep listening, and learned about the oral history of the Avoca Bridge. The culminating activity was a soundwalk on the bridge, where participants walked and listened intentionally, using digital voice recorders and headphones to amplify the site-specific soundscape. Influenced by writings on metaphor and story as methodology, this article discusses the results of the experience through excerpts from participant-created audio recordings, journals, recorded flexible interviews, and research notes, making symbolic connections to local lore and the materiality of the bridge itself. A brief history of soundwalking, with particular attention to Andra McCartney’s seminal work on the practice, followed by a discussion of theoretical and methodological considerations relating to the use of amplification are also presented. The notion of a society where beneficial intergenerational connections are made possible thanks to an interruption to age-segregated practices is explored.