Reading the air (sacrifice zone)

Adam Moore, Reading the air (sacrifice zone), Thamesmead Festival 2026. Photo by Rosie Reed Gold.

Reading the air (sacrifice zone) is a place based audio work and temporary sculpture, an immersive, interactive artwork commissioned for Thamesmead Festival 2026, designed for listening in stereo on headphones at the clearing on the verge bordering Southmere Lake and the Ridgeway, the place once known as Wanderlust Hill. The sound composition, Reading the air, is an experimental audio portrait of Thamesmead mapping the unique and sprawling urban and rural sonic landscape in transition: the temporary sculpture, (sacrifice zone), explores architectural, ecological, and spatial acoustic forms – the pyramid – across ancient human civilisations (the Pyramids of Giza and Chichén Itzá) and modern entertainment (Glastonbury Festival’s Pyramid Stage). Reading the air (sacrifice zone) explores the unique and precarious rich and depleting habitat biodiversity in Thamesmead caught in the confluence of local government authorities, planning bodies, and major landowners renewable strategies. Festival goers scanned QR codes to listen to the sound work with their headphones during Thamesmead Festival. As festivalgoers encountered the work they were able to listen, walk, and rest, guided by gentle offerings of inclusion and participation in the soundscape. A strange, larger than life portal sustainably designed with materials and forms from within my practice (sacrifice zone) was the beacon for slowing down and entering into the sonorous landscape of Thamesmead all around us, composed from the different sounds we hear and feel that let us know we’re in Thamesmead. The work brings a local community-focussed energy to the festival spotlighting local people and their experiences living and working in Thamesmead now.

Co-created with the listening ears of people living and working in Thamesmead all the sounds you can hear are a collection of field recordings created across spring/summer ’26 at: Cygnet Square fountains on the first hot day of spring; Southmere Lake, near the Boat House; in local residents’ living rooms and at open windows on the Lesnes Estate; along the Thames Path; at Crossness Pumping Station; North Thamesmead; Tump39, and more. Recordings were gathered through an open call sent out across Thamesmead inviting submissions.

Adam Moore, Reading the air (sacrifice zone), Thamesmead Festival 2026. Photo by Rosie Reed Gold.

“You get the combination of the sounds of the wildlife beside the lake with the aeroplane flying very low overhead, which speaks to Thamesmead’s position straddling rural and urban”.

“It’s lovely to hear that nature is thriving around us”. 

“Urban sounds mixed with natural sounds. The breeze in the reeds, moorhen ducklings, wood pigeons, robins, and blackcaps. These are the sounds of Tump”.

“It literally resonates!” 

“I’m a runner, and associate the sounds of the river mixed with the sounds of light industry with my runs along the Thames Path”.

“I hear the sounds of children playing after school in The Cage very often. Sometimes they can be extremely loud, but I love to hear the sound of people enjoying themselves at any age, and kids have an extra level of freedom in their enjoyment!”

“The parakeets are very vocal every morning. It is the first sound you hear”.

Special thanks to collaborators Lisa Drew, Rob Parker, Phil Askew, Nicky Sutton, Amanda Eatwell, Louisa Coulthurst, Melissa Rayne, Christine, John Wilson, and Jay Hull.

Thanks to Thamesmead Festival,
Shaun Coombes and Serious, Melissa Rayne,
and Dominic Longworth.