Contemporáneas. Sarela Caudal Sonoro
Galicia Emocional Collective, coordination and direction
Nacho Muñoz, musician
Sol Álvarez and Marcos PTT, Demiúrgo

An Acoustic Walk
From Ponte do Carme to Muíño de Parente (approx. 75 min.)
(Maximum 20 people per walk, registration required at compostelacultura.gal)

Water is life, memory, and transformation. The Sarela River was once a source of food, leisure, and economy for Compostela, when the city was just a small village—a silent witness to the passing of time… Yet that’s only a saying, because the Sarela is anything but silent. Its constant murmur defines its surroundings, and that sound is what we will amplify and rediscover in these live sound walks created by the Galicia Emocional Collective.

With much less economic and industrial relevance today, we often see these areas as peripheral residential zones or leisure spaces. But the Sarela overflows with far more life than meets the eye. Along its banks it keeps secrets, intimacies, and the imprint of time.

These walks follow a route along springs, washhouses, mills, and irrigation channels, recalling how the Sarela’s fluvial infrastructures shaped modern Compostela. Along the way, participants will learn how communities once used natural resources—and why protecting them today is vital. We must not take water for granted: nearly 2.2 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water.

Sarela Caudal Sonoro is an amplified sound walk that enables attentive and conscious listening to the many forms of water, life, landscape, and memory that inhabit the Sarela River. The experience is immersive: using a high-quality Silent Disco system, we capture and transform the sounds of the walk in real time, creating a unique sound piece in each journey.

Different recording techniques and devices will be used —binaural, cardioid, geophone, and hydrophone microphones— but beyond the technical, the aim is to evoke emotion. The route is designed to connect with the memory of the place through its ruins, houses, and washhouses.

A guide leads the group, proposing dynamics and creating poetic contrasts with what is heard. Walkers will encounter brief artistic interventions —installations, performances, or live music— as well as testimonies from local residents. During the project’s creation, the collective spoke with inhabitants and neighbours to incorporate their stories and memories into the experience.

In this way, the identity of the Galicia Emocional Collective is preserved: combining the emotion rooted in the territory and contemporary sound creation with the sharing of its history and present. To fight for a future worth living.