First Day In The City

In this work, I decided to take further my research on placemaking and active citizenship and make an intimate nuanced portrait of Glasgow city. Inspired by Chantal Akerman’s “News from Home” a brilliant meditation on urban alienation, personal and familiar disconnection, I asked seven people who are not from UK, including myself, to describe their very first day in Glasgow. I recorded their descriptions and decided to create a soundscape to manifest how cultural differences, can shape, differentiate and inhabit our surroundings and a place’s identity. The soundscape acquires a symbolic character because as soon as it starts playing it triggers the video, as people trigger the places they inhabit.