Nathaniel Mann’s practice often begins with a simple but powerful question: what can sound reveal that conventional histories cannot? Across his work, listening becomes a method of uncovering forgotten narratives embedded within landscapes, institutions and collective memory.

Projects such as The Cut and Tyburnia demonstrate this approach. In The Cut, Mann explored the social and political histories of Britain’s canals, tracing how waterways shaped labour, migration and urban transformation. In Tyburnia, he turned toward London’s former execution sites, investigating how violence leaves psychic traces within the geography of a city.

His work frequently transforms archival material into immersive sonic experiences. During his residency at the Pitt Rivers Museum, he worked with more than a century of recorded sound, creating compositions that allowed the museum’s hidden collections to speak through layered listening. Rather than treating archives as static records, Mann reactivates them — turning them into living encounters.

This approach defines much of his artistic language. Sound is not simply composition; it becomes a way of excavating what remains beneath official narratives. Through field recordings, oral histories, found sound and live performance, Mann invites audiences to listen to the overlooked, the erased and the half-remembered.