Lucy Dearlove

I went to the second ever HearSay International Audio Arts Festival in the small town of Kilfinane in 2015. Organiser Diarmuid Macintyre has created an amazing, welcoming space for audio producers and artists to get together for lectures, workshops, immersive experiences and general audio inspiration. I met so many people and it played a large part of my decision to go freelance the following year, so I could explore more creative audio work.

This year, previous attendees were invited to pitch an idea for an event. I was really honoured to have mine accepted, and hosted a ‘Potluck’ in local resident Diarmuid O’Leary’s beautiful house on the Saturday morning of the festival. There were originally meant to be three sittings but there was demand for four so I did an extra one; guests sat around a table tucking into Diarmuid’s tea and homemade soda bread and jam, and my homemade Korean dumplings while listening to three audio pieces about a particular dish.

The idea behind the event was that of a traditional Potluck; where guests bring dishes to share. But in this case, only three guests brought dishes and both they and the food were only present in audio form.

The event had a really great response and I was also really pleased to be included as part of RTE’s Inside Culture special programme about the festival. You can hear me interviewed and a short clip of one of the pieces I played here.