Created as a cross-disciplinary collaborative installation with environmental engineering students, Navigating Noise reflects the mutual desire for two individual researchers in different fields to help their research to better connect with a wider audience. In order to share information, findings, and research it was understood that the fist step would be to establish a common vocabulary. Conversations were held on several occasions, each in a different space, in an effort to identify hidden commonalities between the particular fields of study each operated in and their individual identities as well. To help more people to familiarize themselves with their research the collaborators hold the responsibilities to understand what one another contributes. 

Notes from every meeting were recorded as audio and documented through handwritten notes which eventually came together to create the collected information installation. Hand written notes were digitally collaged and printed on canvas which was then sewn together to form the blanket that hung as the center of the installation. Particular points of emphasis and recurring themes were enlarged and less translucent than competing thoughts. An audio component played in the background and implemented the same idea where important parts of discussion were louder and clearer. To read the notes better and to hear the audio more clearly one must weed through fragmented strips of torn notes first. By navigating all of this noise one can find access points to the installed material, with progress being made towards improved understanding. 

Made clear throughout the collaboration is that not everyone communicates in the same ways so it is crucial to work to learn how others communicate in an effort to expand our communities that we can learn from and lean on.