Community art project invites people of Falkirk and beyond to share their canal stories and recordings

An immersive art installation at The Falkirk Wheel marks the start of the Canal Listening project which is inviting the community to share stories and recordings about the Forth & Clyde and Union canals 

Wednesday 24th June 2026. A new arts and research project is inviting people from across Falkirk to take part in sharing their stories, memories and recordings of the canals. 

The Canal Listening project, led by artist Andrew J Brooks and Scottish Canals, aims to create a community soundmap capturing the social, cultural and ecological life of the Forth & Clyde and Union canals.

The soundmapping exercise will bring together voices, music, and environmental recordings from the area and will show how attentive listening can reveal new perspectives about places shared by people and nature.

Participants are invited to play a central role in creating the project’s artworks, working alongside Andrew to collect recordings, shape a cultural sound map of Falkirk’s waterways, and develop sound installations and public presentations that reflect their own experiences and perspectives of the canals and Falkirk.

Visitors can get a taste of the project through two immersive installations, Dawning and Tunnel, hosted in the Visitor Centre at The Falkirk Wheel from Friday 3rd to Monday 6th July. 

Dawning combines film and audio recordings of the dawn chorus, captured on the Union Canal in Falkirk. The installation invites visitors to slow down, listen closely and experience the changing soundscapes of the daybreak. 

Tunnel takes visitors on a ten-minute journey through the Falkirk High Tunnel. Recorded using ambient microphones, contact microphones and hydrophones, the work recreates the tunnel’s rich acoustic environment within a space generated from 3D laser scans.

Andrew said: “I am eager to begin working with the communities around the canal. The sounds of the environment where we live hold so much cultural significance for us and can help us understand about ourselves and the world we share with our communities, both human and non-human. The canals are a rich cultural and ecological setting to develop this research and make artwork with the local communities.”

Ross McMillan, Head of Destinations at Scottish Canals added: “We’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Millennium Link project which re-opened and reconnected our Lowland canals. This is such a timely moment to invite the community to share their stories and reflections about their canals. The immersive experience, which is running next month is just the start, and we look forward to hearing many more stories and recordings inspired by the project in the coming years.” 

SARC Director Professor Pedro Rebelo from the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen's University Belfast said: “Andrew’s PhD project provides us with an opportunity to work closely with Scottish Canals and continue to expand our work in acoustic ecology and soundscape studies. These areas of research at SARC go back some twenty years and continue to reflect a sense of urgency and need.” 

The Canal Listening project’s immersive installations are open and free to the public at The Falkirk Wheel from 3rd – 6th July in the Blueprint Room to the left of the Visitor Centre entrance. 

Anyone interested in contributing to the project — through stories, recordings, or reflections — is invited to contact Andrew at: https://www.ajb-art.com/canal-listening