Lay Doo the Salt Voice

Lay Doo the Salt Voice is an innovative new sound art project by artist Justin Wiggan. A leading figure in the realm of biosonification, Justin uses experimental equipment to capture the everyday, from plants and water to minerals and the stars, turning micro movements into “emotional phonic architecture”.

Justin will be working with communities along the West and North Norfolk coasts to explore climate resilience, community rituals, and the reclamation of land through nature. Through a series of creative sound making workshops, the communities will become ‘sonic detectives’ as they turn real-time data from the salt, water, wind and coastal flora of their places into music, the Salt Voice.

Justin will also be creating two bespoke soundscapes made from the biosonification of the nature around Hunstanton and Cley and Salthouse Marshes, a Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve. Together with the Salt Voice created by the community, a new audio interpretation bench will be fabricated for the public to listen to the music of the nature around them.

The interpretation bench will be unveiled as part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2027 and will have a permanent home at the start of the Norfolk Coastal Path in Hunstanton.

Lay Doo the Salt Voice is co-commissioned by Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Norfolk Coast Protected Landscape, in partnership with Norfolk Wildlife Trust.

‘I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that a landscape might be quietly speaking to us, even when we can’t hear it. Lay Doo the Salt Voice gives us a chance to listen more closely — to salt, water, wind and the living things along the Norfolk coast — and discover what happens when those hidden signals become sound.’ Justin Wiggan