New immersive exhibit comes to New Bedford Whaling Museum

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (WLNE) — A new exhibit at the New Bedford Whaling Museum uses sound, science, and art to create a one-of-a-kind underwater experience.

Overheard Underwater lets visitors step into an immersive world of marine life and underwater noise.

“This is, we believe, the first time that an artist has come in and created a brand new soundscape, something completely new that combined sound collections that we have with their own sound recordings to create a kind of immersive environment that has never been heard before, and especially in one of our gallery spaces,” Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and Community Projects Ymelda Laxton said.

The exhibit features the work of multimedia artist Perri Lynch Howard, who combines decades of marine mammal recordings with her own audio and visual art.

“These mammal sounds from our own collection mixed with Perry’s, really what they do is create an immersive experience that makes you feel like you’re on a journey with the animals that you’re hearing, and with the scientists that you also can hear in the recordings as they go above water to the depths of the ocean,” Laxton said.

Laxton said visitors are encouraged to slow down, listen, and reflect on how sound shapes life in the ocean.

“Sitting in the space, if you sit for the whole 10 minutes or even a few minutes, you can feel what it’s like to be underwater with these animals,” she said. “And you can start to think about the effect that sound really does have. either from ships or from other animals in the ocean, and what happens to the animals with increased noise.”

Overheard Underwater runs through Nov. 11.