Sounds Now

Curat­ing Voic­es of Oth­er­ness: Women, non-bina­ry, and trans­gen­der per­sons’ cre­ative resilience in a world of wars, crises, and polit­i­cal tur­moil.

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Wars, con­flicts, and var­i­ous crises are nev­er gen­der-neu­tral because they affect the whole of soci­ety, which is itself not gen­der-neu­tral. Those crises, both social and polit­i­cal as well as crises of val­ues, affect women, non-bina­ry and trans­gen­der per­sons in a par­tic­u­lar way due to the inter­sec­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion they face, which is based on a com­bi­na­tion of var­i­ous char­ac­ter­is­tics or iden­ti­ties (migrant or refugee women, non-bina­ry and trans­gen­der per­sons, per­sons of col­or or Roma per­sons, dif­fer­ent­ly-abled per­sons, per­sons in pover­ty cri­sis, aged per­sons, non-het­ero­sex­u­al per­sons, per­sons with car­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties, and so on). Aside from dis­crim­i­na­tion, women, non-bina­ry and trans­gen­der per­sons often expe­ri­ence gen­der-based vio­lence, espe­cial­ly when they find them­selves in sit­u­a­tions of pre­car­i­ty. Remain­ing silent is a com­mon sur­vival strat­e­gy. More­over, women, non-bina­ry, and trans­gen­der per­sons’ voic­es are often bru­tal­ly silenced. Art seems to be the only lan­guage avail­able to be heard. Art, music, and sound become political.

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The sym­po­sium will be an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary dis­cus­sion (both the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal) on what it means to curate and cre­ate under oppres­sion, fac­ing hos­til­i­ties and exis­ten­tial pre­car­i­ty. We will share and dis­cuss diverse women, non-bina­ry, and trans­gen­der per­sons’ expe­ri­ences of fac­ing crises, ana­lyze what dif­fi­cul­ties mar­gin­alised per­sons face with­in the cre­ative sec­tor, and try to under­stand to what extent their cre­ative par­tic­i­pa­tion can be resilient and flu­id in sit­u­a­tions of emer­gency. Dur­ing the two-day sym­po­sium, you will meet cura­tors, activists, and artists includ­ing Elham Puriya Mehr and Alic­ja Czy­czel amongst oth­ers, deal­ing with the ethics of oth­er­ness, with a spe­cif­ic focus on women, trans- and non-bina­ry per­sons in the con­texts of music and sound. Some activ­i­ties will be con­duct­ed in small­er work­ing groups (please, reg­is­ter using the link below), and some will be open to the gen­er­al public. 

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Programme

FRIDAY 22.09

9.30 WELCOME: Arrival and coffee

10.00 INTRODUCTION: Intro­duc­ing the con­cept, the peo­ple behind and the ground rules

10:30 INSPIRATIONS: Inspi­ra­tional pre­sen­ta­tions and ques­tions
+ Elham Puriya Mehr: The Cura­to­r­i­al as an Inter­face
This lec­ture con­cen­trates on the cura­to­r­i­al as an inter­face that ampli­fies women’s voic­es in the entan­gle­ment of sociopo­lit­i­cal con­di­tions. An active, mul­ti­ple, and joint agency that pos­sess­es poten­tial­i­ties to encour­age social rela­tions in the extreme con­di­tion of sep­a­ra­bil­i­ty. Cura­to­r­i­al abil­i­ties visu­alise invis­i­ble inter­ac­tions and con­tain rhythm, sound, and embod­i­ment, and acknowl­edge them as polit­i­cal action.

As a case study, this lec­ture reflects on the Woman. Life. Free­dom move­ment in Iran as a plat­form for eman­ci­pat­ing voic­es and bod­ies, and under­lines a cura­to­r­i­al role in its awak­en­ing and con­ti­nu­ity. It rais­es ques­tions such as: how can the cura­to­r­i­al as an inter­face slow down or inter­rupt the pre­de­ter­mined pat­terns that mute voic­es? And how does it mobilise the con­tin­u­a­tion of events in the time of protest?

+ Olia Dia­tel

13.00 LUNCH – Hash­tag Lab 

14:00 CONNECTIONS: Shar­ing thoughts and col­lab­o­ra­tive writing 

15:30 Cof­fee break

16:00 Glis­san­do Launch with guests: Moni­ka Żyła (mod­er­a­tion), guests: Elham Puriya Mehr and others 

17:00 Break and walk to restaurant

17:30 JOINT DINNER 

19:30 Con­cert at War­saw Autumn: Zubel / Adam­czak / Marel­li / ORKIESTRA MUZYKI NOWEJ / Bywalec – Hen­drich / Stańczyk / Szmyt­ka / Wołek

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SATURDAY 23.09

9:30 CHECK IN: Arrival and coffee 

10:00 WORKSHOP: Embod­ied lis­ten­ing work­shop run by Alic­ja Czyczel

10:45 THE THING FROM THE FUTURE: A ses­sion of rad­i­cal imag­ing of the future. You will take part in a game called The Thing from the Future build­ing new worlds and relations. 

13.00 LUNCH – Hash­tag Lab 

14:00 WORKSHOP: Embod­ied lis­ten­ing work­shop run by Alic­ja Czyczel

14:45 A MANIFESTO OF OPENNESS: Writ­ing a Man­i­festo of Open­ness, indi­vid­u­al­ly or in groups.

16:30 CELEBRATION AND CLOSING 

17:00 Break and walk to the restaurant

17:30 JOINT DINNER
19:30 Con­cert at War­saw Autumn: Mukaiya­ma / Pękala / Bial­ic / CHÓR I ORKIESTRA FILHARMONII NARODOWEJ / Her­man­to / van Kool­wijk – Zubel / Balch / Rożynek / Vaugh­an / Błaże­jczyk / van Koolwijk

+ Acces­si­bil­i­ty: 

Togeth­er with our part­ners at Hash­tag LAB, we make every effort to ensure that our sym­po­sium is acces­si­ble to all who wish to attend it. If you have spe­cial needs and would like to attend an event, please email us at: [email protected].

+ Cred­its:

The sym­po­sium is devel­oped and curat­ed by Moni­ka Żyła (musi­col­o­gist, writer, and cura­tor), Yulia Lashchuk (researcher and cura­tor), Anne Mar­q­vard­sen, and Anna Berit Asp Chris­tensen (artis­tic direc­tors of Sounds Now part­ner SPOR fes­ti­val, Denmark)

+ Ques­tions? Con­tact [email protected]

Przestrzeń Muzy­ki Współczes­nej Hash­tag Lab współ­fi­nan­su­je Mias­to Stołeczne Warszawa.

Tickets

Free Entry