East End Echoes was born out of a desire to document the stories of Latino/a/x/e immigrants and descendants of immigrants who have settled within Houston’s Historic East End (you can read more on the East End here).

Composer J.E. Hernández conducted interviews with various residents of the area, and then wove together musical pieces along with these recordings in order to create the GPS-enabled experience. The idea is to document and create a permanent archive within the city of Houston that enables people of all walks of life to listen to and get a sensibility of the East End through the eyes of Latino/a/x/e people.

The musical “cells” that makeup the experience are named after colors and numbers that are associated with the emotions of the speakers as well as the total number of sections into which the East End was divided to place the musical cells. As a participant puts on headphones and walks around, they go through the specific cells via their own unique and tailored journey - no two experiences of East End Echoes are the same.

Work on the installation is ongoing. The hope of this project is to slowly but surely conduct more interviews with more people, eventually covering as much of the diversity of the city as possible, and create an artistic and musical testament to the city’s inhabitants, through their own words and on their terms.