shangani 17DEC06 15min by Grant Smith | 15:00
16-17 DEC 2006 night
by the W Indian Ocean at Shangani, on the outskirts of Mtwara, S Tanzania.
sounds of the sea and sleepers in rooms with open windows very near the ocean. cocks and dogs, occasional seabirds, sometimes music very faintly from the town. The recording captures a moment before mobile devices, urbanisation and amplification started to alter the soundscape significantly. Mtwara was already becoming the focus of offshore gas exploration by Anadarko Petroleum and other transnational entities, whose activities remain literally under the surface and often out of sight. The closeness of human and marine sounds implies the exposure of people and ecologies here and the tangible threat of rising sea levels.