The making of 'Journey Through a Cow'
In recent years, I’ve found myself making quite a lot of work about cows. I’ve long been interested in food and its relationship with land and climate and I was part of the team making Farmerama podcast. This brought me into contact with farmers whose approach aspires to create sustainable, closed-loop systems, where animals like cattle are used to enhance the biodiversity and fertility of a landscape through their grazing, footsteps and dung.
A few years ago, at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, I happened to attend a talk by artist and philosopher Samar Nasrullah Khan. In a programme of (fascinating) discussions about the nitty-gritty of food politics and farming, Samar’s talk stood out for its poetic and provocative tone, and the sense of wonder it conveyed. They were reflecting on their experience observing cows while researching their Master’s thesis, titled “Listening, With Dairy Cows”.
For me, it was the spark for several years of cow-related audio exploration. I interviewed Samar about their work, and created a short piece for BBC Radio 4’s Short Cuts, called “Does a Cow Know?”. Then, thanks to a YASS! mentorship via the wonderful LUCIA Festival, I was able to visit Samar in the Netherlands and create a longer documentary, titled “The Only Animal That Can Speak?”.
One of the many observations Samar shared was about the multi-species civilisations of microbes that exist within a cow’s digestive system and within the soil, and the “conversations” these communities are constantly having with each other (but which most of us are largely unaware of). I loved this idea, and it was one of my motivations to pitch “Journey Through a Cow” to BBC Radio 4’s Illuminated strand. Thanks to Hugh Levinson at Radio 4 for commissioning it!
As well as Samar, I interviewed farmer Nikki Yoxall, microbiologist Prof. Sharon Huws and cheesemaker Peter Dixon – four people with very different perspectives on the same topic. Just like Samar’s conference talk, I wanted the programme to convey a sense of wonder: wonder with regard to cows’ incredible digestive systems, their interactions with the land, with each other and with other species, and the crucial role they’ve played in human history.
Along with field recordings of cows, I had hoped to use a contact microphone to record soil life, and I did try (thank you to Becca at Alexandra Park Food Forest for giving me access to a wormery!). But it was winter, and I guess the worms were hibernating, or at least pretty dozy. For some aspects of the sound design, I therefore turned to more creative approaches – playing around with water in different vessels, and recording my houseplants “drinking”.
I worked with musician and sound designer Ev Buckley who composed the music and worked with my recordings to create the sound design. This was my first time working with a sound designer, and it was both a great experience and a learning curve. I’m really looking forward to building on that.
From Bespoken, Executive Producer Carys Wall provided invaluable input on the narrative structure and script, and really helped to shape the programme.
Listen to “Journey Through a Cow” on BBC Sounds here.
