These streets were ours: remapping Dylan Thomas’s Swansea

Abstract

Audio archives are a unique tool that have helped geographers further their spatial analyses of the world. Through listening to voices from the past, the historical geographies of places are revealed and can, then, be used to better understand the numerous narratives that shape a location. But what happens if we take these recordings and reinterpret them, using an artistic lens? Can we create fresh and alternative ways of displaying and doing cultural geography? In this short essay, I demonstrate how I used selected audio archives which discussed the formative years of the life of Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, to create a video map which combines past and present representations of the city of Swansea, Wales, to reimagine the archives for a 21st-century audience. By doing so, I reflect on how when combined with artistic methods, audio archives can be a vital tool for mapping new and innovative understandings of place.