We’re excited to share You Are Here, a brand new podcast series produced by Levenshulme Old Library.
You Are Here brings together five specially commissioned short stories, each set in and inspired by one of Levenshulme’s parks and green spaces – Cringle Park, Highfield Country Park, Nutsford Vale, Chapel Street Park and the Fallowfield Loop. Alongside each story, you’ll find a soundscape created from field recordings, and a portrait of the park made up of local voices, memories and reflections.
The idea behind You Are Here is simple: to show that creativity, storytelling and serious art can happen anywhere – not just in galleries, theatres or city centres, but in the parks, paths and corners of our everyday neighbourhoods.
The stories themselves can be listened to as standalone pieces of fiction, but they’re also designed to be experienced in the places that inspired them. If you visit one of the parks, you’ll find a You Are Here sign with a QR code you can scan to listen while you’re there. Or you can simply find the full series online, wherever you get your podcasts.
We were lucky to work with some of Manchester’s most accomplished fiction writers – Valerie O’Riordan, Verity Platt, Hette Phillips, Dipika Mummery and Marie Crook – and with sound design from Oscilloscope, the project brings together storytelling, memory, and the everyday textures of life in Levenshulme’s green spaces.
You Are Here is about slowing down, listening differently, and reimagining the places we move through every day. It’s also part of a wider conversation about how creative work can emerge from – and belong to – communities and landscapes that are often overlooked.
We’d love for you to listen – and even better, to visit the parks and hear the stories where they first took root.
Find the full series here:
levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/you-are-here