A heart can break in many places

"I chose a heartbeat recording from Oxford; because my ancestry is Indian and the nature of this project, it got me thinking about the impacts of colonization and how that leads to both forced and unforced migration. Panjab was cut in two during partition and so much blood was spilled in this former kingdom of five rivers. 

"I was thinking about this history and the heartbreak that so many carried away from what was for generations our home. This led me to reflect upon how we as humans the world over can find many homes for our hearts. 

"The composition is made purely through the manipulation of this audio file of heartbeats, stretching and scattering the recording, adding resonators, pitch shifting and fx as well as converting it to midi for some of the rhythmic elements. Delays are used as a form of loss that we carry with ourselves as second generation migrants atop of lands again stolen and brutalized by the crown... and still, I find a sense of home under these skies."

Oxford heartbeat reimagined by Ruby Singh.

Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration. 

For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration