I am Craig Carpenter, a sound designer, researcher and Director of Talking Owl Technologies, working across Indigenous-language digitization, podcast production, narration, voice and field recording, language technology and environmental listening.
I care about this work because I want to help make reconciliation real through practical, everyday work. For me, that means listening carefully, building relationships and bringing my skills to language restoration under community leadership. I see this as part of the ongoing work of decolonizing our relationships and learning to understand that we are all related.
Listening is at the heart of how I want to work and live. Deep listening asks me to slow down, pay attention and notice what I do not yet understand. Whether I am listening to a voice, a recording or the living world around me, I am still learning. This is a lifelong practice, and the learning never ends.
My wife, Élise, our son, Gabriel, and I live in Peachland, on unceded Syilx territory. Élise is a visual artist. We care deeply about making a difference in the world and try to give that care a practical place in our lives through right livelihood: work and daily choices that reflect our values and responsibilities to one another.
Listening to language, land and water.
My professional background is rooted in film audio and more than twenty years of sound work. That experience includes sound design, production recording, voice recording and interactive audio; I am an Emmy Award recipient, and my experience includes sound-effects recording for Airborne Sound, training with Paul Virostek, and dialogue editing on Skate 2 for Electronic Arts.
Since 2020, my work at the En’owkin Centre has supported Indigenous-language collections through recording, digitization and archival workflows. My environmental recording and marine-acoustics work with Trailmark connects listening practice with community stewardship.
As a settler collaborator, I work within the direction and responsibilities established by Indigenous partners. My role is to support the people who hold authority over their languages, knowledge and materials.
Research & learning
I completed an MA in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies at UBC Okanagan in 2024. My thesis, Seeding alignment between language technology and Indigenous methodologies: the making of Kʷu sqilxʷ an interactive digital edition, brought recorded nsyilxcən speech, text and Indigenous methodologies into relationship.
I am now a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies at UBC Okanagan, researching listening, language learning, archives and community-directed technologies. In 2026, I received a Canada Graduate Research Scholarship—Doctoral (CGRS D) through SSHRC.
My current work includes a paper being developed for ICPhS 2027 on immersive listening and attention to unfamiliar speech contrasts.
From experience to community capacity
I offer practical training in recording, digitization, ReadAlong creation, digital stewardship, ecoacoustics and AI literacy. The intention is to help teams build skills and maintain resources under their own governance.
Talking Owl Technologies is based in the Okanagan, on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Syilx/Okanagan people.
Let’s begin with your priorities.
A first conversation can help connect your collection, training needs or language-resource plans with practical support.
