Commercial Court, Belfast

Belfast, Northern Ireland lockdown sound recorded by Georgios Varoutsos.

“In the midst of a global pandemic, countries and cities have become literal ghost towns. Once flustered with sounds from human activities, this has now been overtaken from the subtle industrial, mechanical, and natural environment sounds. On Friday March 27, 2020, the 5th day of the official lockdown in the UK, I used my one daily activity of walking around the city of Belfast and quickly recorded various local or touristic points of interests with aid of VisitBelfast’s visitor map. Each of the soundscapes last two minutes because of the strict lockdown measurements set by the government, only allowing us to be outside for limited periods of time for essential grocery shopping, a daily activity, work, or health related.”

"A rare occasion to witness a Friday afternoon with the entire Commercial Court empty. This popular location usually gathers groups of locals and tourists to a begin their weekend festivities. Even looking into some of the bars, they still had their St. Patrick's Day decorations up."

Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds