pronunciation: /məˈtɪəriəl ˈselvɪdʒɪz/ noun (used with a singular verb)
1. A radio-making project examining materiality through Global Majority First Nations perspectives, with a focus on Southern and West Africa.
Etymology: From material + selvedges (plural of selvedge, also spelled selvage), from Middle English self + edge. The term performs deliberate wordplay with salvage (from Old French salvage, meaning "to save"), invoking both the textile concept of a self-finished fabric edge and the act of recovering suppressed knowledge systems.
Material Selvedges - SoundSound. Acoustic Structuring
“It is the sound, which punctuates the choreographed occupation of the space and most eloquently gives it meaning.“- David J. Lieberman
Research summary: Sound is studied as an environmental and cultural material: acoustics provides quantitative models (wave propagation, reverberation, room modes), while soundscape studies and sonic arts treat sound as a structuring material of environments and social life. ISO 12913 frames the soundscape as “acoustic environment as perceived,” linking measurement and perception.
Sound as a material: Sound precedes and creates physical matter. Voice, instrument, and environmental sound are animate entities carrying lineage and agency, mediating social protocol and memory. Within documented Indigenous epistemologies, sound’s materiality is understood as energetic but social: it organises ritual, land-claims, and histories, thereby functioning as a substrate of social life.
Ideas we are curious to explore: 1. How to formally include Global Majority ontologies of voice in acoustic models (how to preserve ritual sonic ecologies that are place-based). 2. How multisensory combinations (sound + scent + thermal) produce emergent, non-additive material effects. 3. How specific auditory frequencies repair cellular and social structures. 4. The relationship between linguistic tones and healing.