In “Tom’s House”, a new audio-drama from artist and writer Jacob Dwyer, we listen to the meanderings of someone who’s returned home for the first time in 15 years. Walking up Haddon Drive he spots the house of an old friend, Tom. The front door is open, so he goes inside. Wandering around the empty Tudor cottage - making cups of tea, rearranging CD collections and zoning in on the minutiae of domestic space - he ruminates on ideas of emotional intimacy, friendship and grief.
"Hello? Hello?" echoes Jacob's voice, searching for a connection inside empty rooms and memories. As we move through the story, the house shifts slowly back to the realm of the living, while upending ideas gestate in Jacob's mind, like bodies floating within bodies. "THE BABY IS LEGIT UPSIDE DOWN!"
With his field recording equipment, much like his trusty Canon HF10 camera, Jacob evokes the cosmic: at one moment zooming in on microscopic dust particles of dead skin moving through the dank air in murmuration, whilst panning out to catch a poetic, universal overview the next.
"Tom’s House" incorporates voice, foley, field recordings and an original soundtrack composed by K. Freund, Kareem Lotfy, Zuza Banasińska and Jacob Oostra.

Music by Jacob Oostra, K Freund, Zuza Banasińska and Kareem Lotfy
Additional voices by Susanna Simpson, Rachel Dwyer, Faysal Mroueh
Ceramic firebacks by Florence Dwyer
Text by Fizzy Veins & Jacob Dwyer
Design by Rudy Guedj

Images come from a series of five ceramic fireplace firebacks, produced in response to Tom's House by Florence Dwyer. Collectively, the ceramic sculptures and audio drama were presented together in an exhibition at David Dale Gallery, Glasgow, in 2024.

SOUTH OF NORTH (c) 2025