Bristol: Colston's Last Journey audio walk is completed

The interactive audio walk is a mixture of history, art and music

An interactive audio history walk on Bristol's connection to the slave trade has been launched.

Colston's Last Journey starts at the plinth where Edward Colston's statue was pulled down and ends where it was pushed into the harbour in 2020.

Artist Ralph Hoyte lead the project and hopes the interactive walk stops the story of the slave trade being hidden.

"The history will be on the street, not locked away and you can enter it, walk around it and listen," he said.

The route follows the same one protestors took in June, 2020, when the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down and thrown into the harbour.

Mr Hoyte is a writer and poet and has been working on sound art projects in Bristol for the last 17 years

"I wanted to give something back to Bristol and attempt to say this history was a mixture of all these different things that shouldn't be hidden," he added.

"One of the voice artists said the project showed her the scale of the African resistance to being enslaved.

"People think of their phones as phones but they're portals to parallel sound worlds and can tap into this idea of the city as a living museum."

Mr Hoyte worked with University of the West of England (UWE) to develop the historical research behind the audio, local voice actors and musicians.

Local voice actors, musicians and UWE history researchers worked on the project

The audio includes commentary, historic stories of slave trade ghost ships, captains and recitals of poems and music in a walk along what has been called 'The Sea of Woes'.

When people walk along the route their GPS position will trigger the stories and sounds on a map in a free app.

"The nine ghost ships included in the experience are ones that actually sailed from Bristol to the West coast of Africa in the 17th and 18th centaury.

"I'm laying these sounds out in the places where they've occurred so they can make up their own minds. There are all of these different angles, it's layered.

The plinth where the Colston statue once stood remains empty three years after the toppling

Mr Hoyte received Arts Council funding for the project and also worked with musicians from Pervasive Media Studios.

An Arts Council spokesperson said the project had a "strong focus on engaging with the communities in the city through collaboration".

"Co-creation is at the heart of our strategy, 'Let's Create', and we can't wait to see the project unfold and hear the stories from the participants come together in the final sound tapestry," they said.

The walk has been launched through a free app today as part of the Bristol Festival of the Future City.