  Colourama is a one-off podcast episode & art installation about synaesthesia, a curious neurological condition where sounds are experienced as colours.

The project was created for the Festival of the Mind, where the podcast was played to a live audience over wireless headphones in a pop-up tent in Sheffield city centre. 


What is synaesthesia?

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition experienced by roughly 4% of the UK population. The word synaesthesia is Greek in origin, and loosely means 'union of the senses'.

Stimulation of one sense (hearing a sound) triggers a second unrelated sense (seeing a colour). So for example, you might experience a general ‘feeling’ of orange in the mind’s eye when you hear ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles, or turquoise when your phone alarm sounds. 

We spoke to synaesthetes (people with synaesthesia) and asked them to describe and compare their own unique experiences, as well as researchers from The University of Sheffield.

 The podcast premiered live at the Festival of the Mind in 2018. We also held a live Q&A with 3 synaesthetes and two university researchers. But you can now hear it in full online via the player at the top of this page. 

We also designed and built an immersive installation for the Millenium Gallery where visitors could enter a sensory booth and hear excerpts from the podcast.





 Colourama is a collaboration between director Tommy Wilson, and Renee Timmers + Caroline Curwen from The University of Sheffield’s Music Dept.

  What now? Be part of the reseach - Curious to see if you might have synaesthesia? We invite you to complete this very short questionnaire, share your experiences, and to add to our research.

We’d like to thank the Festival of the Mind for supporting this unique project, our interviewees, and the talented Isan & Kosta T for providing the soundtrack.

Want to know more? 