Staff Profile

Anna M Heslop is a Northumbrian writer, sound artist and visual artist based in Newcastle and is currently studying a Masters in Music at Newcastle University. Her research focus is how memory, place and identity intersect in the creation and experience of sonic environments. While sound is her work’s principal output, Anna is decidedly resistant to a solely phono-centric approach which is inherently problematic for both a truly embodied understanding of place and for gaining knowledge about a practice in which human perception, meaning, and artistic subjectivity are all intimately interconnected. Instead she aims to achieve a deeper understanding of her chosen subjects and how these are realised within her practice through an interdisciplinary approach which combines both visual and sonic dimensions of place.

Another current research interest is the possibility of identity formation within the singing voice as a living medium, one that has the ability to become a site of emancipation and radical reinvention of self. Anna writes popular and new music criticism for the German music journal Positionen and was the lead journalist for the publisher at the MaerzMusik Festival 2025. Alongside her current work she also co-leads ‘Sensible Prices’, a contemporary music ensemble based in Newcastle upon Tyne and regular performs, singing with a range of ensembles.

Anna's current research project 'To the Heart that Beats and the Feet that Know' delves into how creative practitioners study place and the nature of the artistic outcome. This research will culminate in the creation of an installation which presents visual artworks in parallel with an acousmatic soundwork to create a complete whole, drawing on historical antecedents while demonstrating a personal approach to the artist’s practice. Unlike approaches which favour one medium over another, this work will open a dialogue between the mediums which are connected through Anna's interdisciplinary methodology, whereby both visual and sonic approaches inform one another. In contrast to site-specific research which places primary importance on a geographic location, this project seeks to locate the essence of place by posing itself as the site. This allows place to come about through the act of doing and highlights the interconnected nature of the senses which is the reality of embodied place experience and is what forms the conceptual underpinning of this work.

Anna has led lectures on subjects relating to the study of soundscapes, sound walks and deep listening techniques with a particular focus on how students can utilise these in the creation of their own compositional work.