15 August 2022

SOUNDINGS: Assemblies of Listenings and Voices Across the Souths

Workshops, listenings, discussions, 21 – 25 August 2022, Hanseatenweg
In English

From 21 to 25 August 2022, musicians, sound artists and thinkers who work at the fringes of Eurocentric sounds will come together. The central focus is on addressing the contemporary lack of critical analysis and artistic presence of what is referred to as the Global South, the diasporic and indigenous music and sound art as well as research on this. Practices, aesthetics and tonal methods that are discursively anchored in countries of the Global South will be brought to the fore. “Soundings” is a gathering across borders and cultures dedicated to dialogue between epistemologies and forms of knowledge as well as mutual care.

This bottom-up approach will be realised in several open forums, the names of which, Panchayat, Thảo Luận, Melā, Sabor and Meśk, refer to non-Western forms of assembly. Different encounter models will be explored through various forms of listening and knowledge transfer. Participants will listen, sing and make music collectively, thinking and feeling with a shared energy. Enabling such contingent, horizontal, inclusive and non-hierarchical forms of knowledge generation is key to the decolonial and dehegemonising impulse behind this gathering. “Soundings” offers voices equal opportunities to participate in a dialogue without having to use Western discourse practices to communicate.

“Soundings” is curated by a steering committee whose members include Oladele Ayorinde, Sandeep Bhagwati, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Murat Gürel, Sandipan Nath, Nguyễn Thanh Thủy, Bhavisha Panchia, Glaucia Peres da Silva and Deniza Popova.

“Soundings” is produced by matralab from Montreal and Sound Across from The Hague and receives financial and/or strategical support from the Akademie der Künste, Creative Industries Fund The Netherlands, inm / field notes berlin, Sounds Now and Ultima Festival Oslo.

The Akademie der Künste and inm – initiative neue musik berlin / field notes have been organising conferences together since 2019, joined by Ultima Festival Oslo and Sounds Now Netzwerk in 2020. After an open space and the first hybrid symposium, which was primarily headed by the institutions, an advisory board set the thematic focuses and formats at the second symposium in 2021. With “Soundings”, the decision-making power has shifted once again: The steering committee is fully responsible for content and planning decisions, as is the network that has developed around it. The Akademie der Künste, inm / field notes, Ultima and Sounds Now support the project in partnership.

Event information
Soundings: Assemblies of Listenings and Voices Across the Souths
21 – 25 August 2022, Hanseatenweg, Hall 3, Club Room, Outer Room
approx. 10 am – 8 pm each day
Different daily programmes with presentations, workshops, jam sessions, films and much more
In English
Free admission, register here
Programme details: www.soundacross.org/soundings

In case of queries: Julia Gerlach, Music Section of the Akademie der Künste
Tel. +49 (0)30 200 57-15 39, julia.gerlach@adk.de