Showcase

Consuming Landscapes

Rachel Payne

Profile picture of Rachel Payne

Rachel originally trained as a theatre designer and has spent 20 years working in the film industry as a Production Designer, working on a diverse range of projects from TV commercials to West End shows to feature films. During her time with MA Narrative Environments Rachel has been exploring new mediums of storytelling as an experience designer. Rachel is particularly interested in narratives that mediate between the complexities of food systems and how they impact our environment.

Rachel originally trained as a theatre designer and has spent 20 years working in the film indust...

‘Consuming Landscapes’ is an immersive audio walk through UK farmland and soilscapes which has been created to be listened to in a large supermarket. Interviews with farmers offer insight into the farming methods that shape the landscape, and in turn how different landscapes produce different foods, demonstrating the importance of locality. Using soundscapes, the walk aims to bring the seasons and the weather into the artificial and controlled interior of the supermarket. 

The audio walk aims to highlight the juxtaposition of the realities of modern farming, which contends with the interplay between our need for food production, care for biodiversity and soil, and our experience of a supermarket which contains very little story of the land and the ecological cost of our shopping baskets. 

The project is situated within the context of the growing urban - rural divide in the UK, as well as rising food costs, food insecurity and changes in agricultural policy prompted by Brexit. The audio walk is aimed at urban supermarket consumers, who are invited to go to their local supermarket and experience this familiar space in a different way.  

Final work

Consuming Landscapes

Consuming Landscapes Audiowalk

graphic image of agricultural landscape packaged inside a supermarket products, against a background of words describing landscape.

What is Landscape? The audio walking route.

Recording sound in a milking parlour and person listening to sounds in supermarket with headphones

Recording on location / Listening to the audio walk

Share this project

Consuming Landscapes

‘Consuming Landscapes’ is an immersive audio walk through UK farmland and soilscapes which has been created to be listened to in a large supermarket. Interviews with farmers offer insight into the farming methods that shape the landscape, and in t...

A link to this page has been added to your clipboard