While many residents are noticing rising temperatures and changing rain patterns in Bogotá, the natural world – and climate change – can seem a distant worry compared to everyday concerns. What might encourage those living in the city to reconnect emotionally to environmental sustainability as an issue affecting them?

For My Mark: My City, our project lead Angela Puentes gathered 40 people from local scientific and cultural communities in a creative space (provided by our friends at the interactive science museum Maloka), and invited them to pitch their ideas for how to turn the situation around.

A Sound Map For The City

The group landed on a simple, powerful idea that would combine art and science to create an impactful, emotional experience for city residents: a sound map of Bogotá.

The map will be created by local people working with biologists, musicians, and artists across the city. It aims to locate people at the heart of their ecosystem, and give them a sense of how close they really are to nature, even in a big city like Bogotá. Over time it will become a platform to help people learn through sound about the natural world that exists around them, particularly along the ecological corridors of Bogotá such as wetlands, natural reserves, the eastern mountains and the Sumapaz páram.

In Production

The sound map is now in production, led by an interdisciplinary team: musician and composer Daniel Roa, the percussionist and sound artist Diana Restrepo, biologists Lany Arevalo and Laura Galindo, Grammy Award-winning musician and producer Hector Buitrago, and artist/designer Rafael Puyana.

We are already in talks with other cities in Latin America about how they can join the sound map project. Imagine if this became a sound map for the whole of Latin America - or even the world; created by communities, shared with everyone, and creating emotional connections with the natural world for millions worldwide.