❋ Hayley Suviste

Sound Art, Moving Image, Field Recording


Hayley’s practice is grounded in listening — to people, environments, and the stories and memories they hold. She works with oral histories, field recordings, and moving image, gathered through her own practice, community workshops, or drawn from archival sources. From these materials, she weaves sonic and visual worlds through installation, live performance, and long-form audio-visual and radiophonic work. Often using multi-channel and ambisonic sound, she creates environments that place the listener within them, where quieter details come into focus.

She is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD at the University of Manchester’s NOVARS Research Centre, funded by the NWCDTP. Her research explores oral histories as compositional material, alongside the ethical considerations of working with recorded voices in sound-based practice, including engagement with her own family histories and collaborative methods.

She has received commissions from Sounds from the Other City, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, North West Sound Heritage, NEWSUBSTANCE, Olympias Music Foundation, and Quays Culture, MediaCityUK and Mediale, for which she collaborated with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. She has been artist in residence at Maajaam (Estonia), Elektronmusikstudion EMS (Sweden), Forestry England, UoS Acoustic Laboratories, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music (Newcastle, UK), and Yorkshire Sound Women Network (University of Hull’s Ambisonic Studio). Her live performances have been presented at venues and festivals across the UK and internationally.

Events
Contact


Bandcamp // YouTube // Instagram


info@hayleysuviste.co.uk

❋ Lõka (2020)


Lōka (2020) explores the migration of Bengali workers from rural Bangladesh and India to the UK’s textile mills in the 1950s. Blending folk songs, field recordings, archival material and oral histories, the 8-channel composition traces journeys from rural labour to industrial life in Lancashire—highlighting shared experiences of displacement, community, and working conditions across cultures.

With thanks to: Anindita Ghosh (historical narrative), Masih Alam & the Krishno Chura ensemble (Bengali folk music and instruments), Les Cartes Postales Sonores (archival Bangladeshi field recordings), Jennifer Reid (Lancashire folk songs, clog dancing and narrative), Manchester Central Library Sound Archive (‘Sounds of the Lancashire Textile Industry’) and Quarry Bank Mill for allowing me to record their machinery.




Lōka by Hayley Suviste