Arterial Sounds (2026)
Arterial Sounds is a light and sound installation exploring what cardiovascular health looks, feels, and sounds like, and iterating and evolving over the month of July. Created in partnership with The Music Works the installation transforms real sounds of blood moving through the arteries – recorded using medical Doppler ultrasound – into a bold, ever-shifting site specific artwork.
The soundscape at its heart was co-created with young people aged 10–25, who listened to arterial recordings, explored what heart health means to them, and shaped the music that runs through the whole experience. Alongside the installation, an exhibition offers the chance to explore how cardiovascular disease develops and what all of us can do to reduce the risk.
The installation is free and open to everyone.
University of Gloucestershire City Campus, St Aldgate Street, King’s Square, Gloucester GL1 1RP Times: Monday – Friday 9.00am-5.00pm
Arterial Sounds is a creative health project
Arterials Sounds is a creative health project that uses art to make cardiovascular health tangible. By transforming real arterial sounds into something visual and engaging, the project invites the public to experience, quite literally, what a healthy heart sounds like, and what changes when lifestyle puts that rhythm at risk.
Co-created with young people from Gloucestershire, many with lived experience of cardiovascular disease, the work seeks to bridge the gap between clinical knowledge and everyday life, helping people of all ages understand that the choices we make about movement, diet, and lifestyle have a real, measurable impact on our arteries.
Why cardiovascular health, and why now?
Cardiovascular disease is the UK’s biggest killer responsible for 27% of all deaths in 2022, and more than 175,000 lives lost every year. More than half of premature CVD deaths are linked to lifestyle factors that can be changed: diet, physical activity, and smoking among them. Yet awareness, particularly among young people and in communities already facing health inequalities, remains low.
Standard health messaging has limited reach in these communities. Arterial Sounds takes a different approach starting with the body’s own sounds as a creative and scientific entry point, and bringing the resulting artwork to where communities can encounter it on their own terms.
