Tonotopia: Listening through Cochlear Implants

In 2016 the V&A commissioned the artist Tom Tlalim to lead on a project exploring how music and sound art might be enjoyed by Cochlear Implant users (CI). The project explored a very specific audience beyond the traditional project participant and the museum was keen to collaborate on an original project idea as part of the adult communities strand. In partnership with Action on Hearing Loss an open call to invite CI users to participate in the research was issued in Summer 2016. Tom’s research also ran parallel to the development of the V&A exhibition The Future Starts Here which opened in 2018 and featured Tom’s work on sound experience. In October 2018 the display Tonotopia: Listening through Cochlear Implants opened in the John Lyon's Charity Community Gallery in the Sackler Centre for Arts Education and runs until the 8th March 2019.