A new episode of the podcast series ‘Your Art, Unlocked’ examines Megan Watts Hughes’s ‘Voice Figures’, a group of fragile visual sound works held by Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery in Merthyr Tydfil. Made between 1885 and 1904, the works use glass plates, powders and coloured pastes to create visible records of the human voice.
The episode, published on 9 June 2026, focuses on an unusual intersection of art, music and scientific experiment. Watts Hughes, identified by the museum feature as both a singer and a scientist, developed a process in which vocal sound produced patterns on prepared glass plates. The resulting forms are presented in the collection as ‘Voice Figure’ works, attributed to Megan Watts Hughes (1847–1907).
The podcast is hosted by Steph Roberts, a curator, facilitator and artist support worker, who visits Cyfarthfa Castle to investigate the works and their history. The episode asks a direct question—what does the human voice look like?—while introducing the materials and process behind Watts Hughes’s experiments.
Roberts speaks with Rob Mullender Ross about how Watts Hughes recorded her voice. Contemporary sound artist Cheryl Beer discusses the influence that the ‘Voice Figures’ have had on her own work, placing the nineteenth-century objects in a continuing conversation about sound, image and experimental practice.
At Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Michelle Lewis explains how the fragile works entered the collection. The episode therefore combines close attention to the objects themselves with a collection-based account of their preservation and institutional context. Three works are listed in the feature under the title ‘Voice Figure’, each dated 1885–1904 and associated with the museum.
The episode forms part of the first series of ‘Your Art, Unlocked’, which explores unexpected objects in UK museum collections. Other institutions represented in the series include Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums, F. E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio, Walker Art Gallery and The Box Plymouth. Each episode has its own host; the series’ listed presenters are Ruth Millington, Shane Strachan, Dickon Hall, Jon Sleigh, Precious Adesina and Steph Roberts.
‘Your Art, Unlocked’ is produced by Art UK with support from Bloomberg Connects, and episodes are released weekly.
The programme presents Watts Hughes’s works as part of the art held in public collections, using conversations with curators, artists and researchers to explain objects that may be unfamiliar to visitors. The episode featuring the ‘Voice Figures’ is available as part of the podcast series.
