Secret Lake Stories

Across a series of visits to the site, Emily recorded hours of environmental sound and spoke with dozens of people who use and care for the lake, gathering reflections on how they experience the space and what it means to them. These recordings have been edited together into Secret Lake Stories, a single audio piece that combines field recordings, ambient sound and conversation to create a portrait of the lake and the community around it.

The work was first shared at a listening event at Levenshulme Old Library, where it was presented through multiple speakers placed around the room to recreate the sense of the lake’s sound environment. It is now available to listen to online as a standalone piece.

Secret Lake Stories sits in conversation with some of the other place-based storytelling projects I’ve been involved with at Levenshulme Old Library over the past couple of years, particularly You Are Here, which commissioned new fiction, soundscapes and oral history material responding to local parks and green spaces.

Secret Lake Stories is a new audio piece I’ve been involved in.

It is created by composer and sound artist Emily Zurowski.

The work focuses on the so-called “Secret Lake” in South Manchester, which is precisely what it sounds like, a former industrial reservoir originally constructed to serve the area’s textile mills, later abandoned, and gradually reclaimed by nature as the surrounding land became increasingly industrialised. Although it sits out of sight behind fencing and yards, it is still used and valued by local walkers, fishers, swimmers and others who spend time there.