Described as 'a cross-media experience centring on the creative combination of sound and object', the Soundshapes project will be unveiled at the 2002 Galway Arts Festival. Developed in a collaboration between 'sound composers' and 'object composers' and curated by Seán McCrum and Hilary Morley, it seeks to redefine the relationship between composing sound and making sound by making new instruments which will make the sound.

Seven Irish-based composers are involved: Elaine Agnew, Petr Aranos, Rob Canning, Slavek Kwi, Gráinne Mulvey, Jane O'Leary and Jennifer Walshe, together with Heikki Sarmanto from Finland and Robert Squires from Britain. They will work with a group of fourteen 'object composers', eleven of whom are Irish, together with facilitator Paul Roe (clarinet) who will develop a programme and format for performance and public involvement. The project is not simply a reworking of the relationship between composer and orchestral instrument. These 'instruments' have not been played before because they did not exist before, and a means must be devised of teasing out their sound-making possibilities and, in many cases, methods of notation.

The results of the collaboration will be presented as an exhibition in which the visitors will be a vital component of the creative equation. They can 'test' the instruments and create their own extemporised sounds. The exhibition begins at the Galway Arts Festival in July 2002 and thereafter tours around Ireland and Northern Ireland.