The sound of change: how Leah Barclay is designing sounds of the environment | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

If you ask UniSC’s Discipline Lead in Design Dr Leah Barclay to name a turning point in her career, one that stands out is the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.

The two-week conference, known as COP21, is where 196 countries signed on to the landmark Paris Agreement to combat climate change – which isn’t the first place you’d expect to find a renowned sound artist and designer.

But for Leah, who was there to showcase her groundbreaking ecoacoustics project River Listening, COP21 was the perfect example of the key role creativity can play in tackling major social problems like climate change.

“In my creative practice, I’m interested in the intersection between art, science and technology, and in how we can use art and design as tools to help us shape the future,” she says.

“So many of the problems we face, including climate change, are also social and cultural problems that seem impossible to solve using traditional approaches. That means we need new approaches for engagement and action, which can enhance and expand scientific research and conservation."

Leah’s own passion for conservation began during a childhood spent in and around some of Australia’s most iconic ecosystems, including the banks of the Murray River and the Great Barrier Reef.

Following high school, she underwent classical training as a musician and worked as a composer and sound designer in various contexts. But after a while, she says, she began to feel “restricted” by traditional approaches to composition – and her long-held love of natural environments was calling.

She began to shift towards more experimental practices, capturing sound recordings from rainforests and rivers and combining these with visual techniques to create immersive art experiences.

Over time, this led to the groundbreaking field of ecoacoustics, which uses emerging technologies like remote sensing and hydrophones (underwater microphones) to capture the soundscapes of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to inform conservation, scientific research, and public engagement.

In 2014, after completing her PhD, Leah was awarded a residency with the Australian River Institute at Griffith University, where – alongside a computational programmer and freshwater ecologist – she created River Listening, which involved extensive fieldwork in river systems across Southeast Queensland, including the Noosa and Mary rivers.

One of the project’s goals was to explore new approaches to community engagement through interactive listening labs, field recordings, and sound maps, as well as performances and art installations designed to deepen community understanding of river health and aquatic biodiversity.

River Listening and Leah’s other works have since been commissioned, performed, and exhibited to wide acclaim by international organisations including the Smithsonian Museum, UNESCO, Ear to the Earth, Al Gore’s Climate Reality, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the UN at COP21.

While she is quick to acknowledge the enormous challenges facing global conservation efforts, Leah says the rapid emergence of new technologies has opened exciting possibilities for social action and change – a core focus of her teaching in UniSC’s Design and Creative Industries programs, which allow students to develop skills in a diversity of creative technologies, including virtual and extended reality.

It’s also the motivating force behind UniSC’s Creative Ecologies Research Cluster, which enables innovative, place-based creative research on the Sunshine Coast and surrounding regions – the only location in the world with three connected coastal UNESCO biosphere reserves.

CERC’s goal is to highlight the ways creative technology can serve not only as an intervention, but as a means of deepening people’s connection to place and community.

“We’re currently at this really interesting turning point where rapid advancements are making new technologies increasingly accessible, affordable and accurate,” Leah says.

“Things like acoustic sensors and 360-degree cameras that can capture sound and video from a rainforest or reef used to cost thousands of dollars but are suddenly widely available, which means we can easily measure and track changes in our environment, and get that modelling into the hands of scientists and communities.

"We also use this data to create immersive experiences, to feel and sense the changes in these ecosystems to trigger empathy, care and ultimately action.

“I’m also interested in creative ways to increase wellbeing through technologies like VR and XR, which can allow ecological engagement to reduce tourist traffic in vulnerable ecosystems, or to allow people experiencing social isolation in hospitals or aged care settings to experience the benefits of natural environments.

“We are seeing rapid engagement with this work throughout South-East Asia, and we are well placed at UniSC to be leading education and research in creative technologies and practices that help us understand and connect with rapidly changing ecosystems and environments across the planet.”