❋ 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, New Substance, Olympias Music Foundation, and Quays Culture/MediaCityUK/Mediale, for which she collaborated with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. She has been artist in residence at Maajaam (Estonia), Elektronmusikstudion EMS (Sweden), Forestry England, the University of Salford 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
❋ Email
Bandcamp // YouTube // Instagram

info@hayleysuviste.co.uk

❋ The River Has Many Lives (2026)


The River Has Many Lives is an audio-visual artwork created in collaboration between Hayley Suviste and participants from the Salford Loaves & Fishes community group. Over two months, the group traced the River Irwell from Kersal Wetlands to Peel Park and took part in a series of creative workshops, led by Hayley and a team of guest facilitators: Fiona Brehony (poetry and zine-making), Vicky Clarke (field recording and underwater listening), Lizzie King (cyanotype and photography), and Morag Rose (guided walk). 

The film brings together materials created and collected during these sessions, including field recordings, underwater hydrophone recordings, poems, zines, collages, cyanotypes, photographs, and participant interviews and reflections. These fragments trace the group’s encounters with the river, revealing the memories, wildlife, folklore, conversations, and connections that emerged through spending time along its banks.

The work listens to the river’s many lives: the histories it carries, the ecologies it sustains, and the futures it invites us to imagine. Offering a window into the group’s time together, the film invites audiences to slow down, listen closely and develop their own connection with the River Irwell. Through shared acts of attention, creativity and care, the work asks how we might deepen our relationships with the waterways that flow through our cities, and how greater understanding and connection might support their ongoing life and resilience.



With thanks to the participants and co-creators

Aki, Alan Lai, Ann Chan, Ann Li, Basheer, Florin-Marian Mehtupciu, Hannah, Jodie, Joe, Karl Mather, Lee, Neil Baines, Selina Lo, Silvia P.B. Mendes, Stuart Watson, Teresa Leung and Vilson Beveilli Mendes.


From 17th August to 18th December 2026, The River Has Many Lives (2026) is being shown at the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, University of Salford, as part of ‘Carry the Clouds Away’, an exhibition exploring art, nature, and place.


New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery (Film)
New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery (Cyanotype & Poems)
Field Recording Workshop at Kersal Wetlands
Walking Tour with Morag Rose
Poetry Workshop with Fiona Brehony
Cyanotype Workshop with Lizzie King

Poetry Workshop with Fiona Brehony


This project was made possible by funding from the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP), as part of Hayley Suviste’s PhD project, undertaken at NOVARS Research Centre, University of Manchester. 
❋ Return to Projects