Announcing The Listening Biennial 2023

We're glad to share news on our plans for the second edition of The Listening Biennial, to take place July 2023. As with our first edition, the second edition of the Biennial will bring together a group of international participating artists working across a diversity of practices, and whose works create a range of listening experiences. The exhibition of works will be presented at participating institutions and spaces around the world, offering different listening situations and supporting cultural dialogue and exchange.

For the second edition of the Biennial, we're thrilled to be working with a group of four curators, including Guely Morato (Bolivia), Luísa Santos (Portugal), Rayya Badran (Lebanon) and Dayang Yraola (Philippines). Together we're discussing various topics and questions, working at both local and situated issues as well as fostering wider discussions. For now, we share a first overview, and will continue to post news over the coming months.

Rayya Badran 

Based in Beirut, Rayya Badran is a writer and translator whose practice centers on sound, music, and contemporary art. Her writings have featured in various publications such as Bidoun, Ibraaz, Art Papers, Norient, The Wire, and more. She was guest editor of the Beirut Art Center's online publication The Derivative in 2020 and curator and editor of the Norient City Sounds Online Special: Beirut in 2022. She taught courses on contemporary art and sound studies at the department of Fine Arts and Art History at the American University of Beirut from 2014 to 2021 and is a resident on Radio al Hara.

Guely Morató Loredo 

Since 2014, she has founded and directed Sonandes: Platform for Experimentation and Research, which organizes the only biennial specialized in sound art in Latin America. Sonandes also develops Puertos: Creation Residency Program (2018-2021-2023), publications, laboratories and exhibitions specialized in sound art and listening studies. She co-directed INFRA: variations for body, space and subwoofer system a project with the deaf community, which toured in several South American capitals during 2018-2022. In 2020 she curated the online exhibition calls Espaciario with multimedia essays by Bolivian, Colombian, Argentinean, Chilean and Spanish artists. During 2021 she was the head researcher of the Bolivian team that participated in The Witness_Openlab, a project that is part of the Sonic Matter festival specialized in sound and deep-listing based in Switzerland. He leads the Bolivian team selected to carry out the Alter residency in the Swiss Alps during the summer of 2022. In 2020 he directed the Sound Expressions department of the Center for the Cultural Revolution (CRC) of the Cultural Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia (FCBCB). In 2019, she directed the MediaLab of the Cultural Center of Spain in La Paz. She made commissioned curatorships such as: Babel, listening stories (2019), Cardioid (2019) Collaborative Sound Cartography (2017). She curated four previous editions of Sonandes: Biennial of Sound Art and is currently curating the fifth edition. Since 2021 she has been developing Wak`a, a curatorial project that involves artists and specialists from America, Africa, Asia and Europe.She explores alternative methodologies for artistic research, collective creation, as well as the relationship between politics, technology, and gender. Her work has a strong emphasis on the study of perception. Her work has been shown in different festivals, museums in different countries of America and Europe. She also has won awards in America and Europe.

Dayang Magdalena Nirvana T. Yraola

Dayang has a Bachelor of Arts in Philippine Studies and Master of Arts in Museum Studies from the University of the Philippines, and Doctor of Philosophy in Cultural Studies from Lingnan University Hong Kong. She was appointed Research Fellow at the LUHK Centre for Cultural Research and Development since 2020. She is an Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines, teaching course at the Department of Theory, Department of Studio Arts and Graduate Studies Program for College of Fine Arts, and Department of Musicology, College of Music. She also serves as Curator for the Fine Arts Gallery. She was former Archivist and Collections Manager of Center for Ethnomusicology until 2014. As an independent curator, she founded and curated art project series Project Glocal 2011-2015 and Composite Noises 2015-2024. Focus of her curatorial work is in art as expanded practice involving residencies, performances, exhibits and archives. This includes research on ecology of art practices (artists initiatives/ collectives, art residencies, and sound practice communities).

Luísa Santos

Ph.D in Culture Studies by the Humboldt & Viadrina School of Governance, in Berlin, and M.A. in Curating Contemporary Art by the Royal College of Art, in London, Luísa Santos is an Assistant Researcher, in Culture Studies / Artistic Studies, since 2016 at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. An independent curator since 2009, she conducted research in curatorial practices at the Konstfack, in Stockholm, in 2013 and, since 2019, she is a research fellow at The European School of Governance (EUSG), in Berlin. She is the artistic director of the 4Cs: from Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture, which she has initiated with a consortium of 8 European institutions in 2017. Luísa Santos sits in the editorial and scientific boards of the peer-reviewed magazines Estúdio, Gama, and Croma and of the Yearbook of Moving Image Studies (YoMIS - Research Group Moving Image Kiel), Büchner-Verlag. She has collaborated with various institutions such as Tensta Konsthall, SAVVY Contemporary – Laboratory of Form-Ideas, Fundació Antoni Tápies, Museet for Samtidskunst, P28, Gulbenkian Museum, Carpe Diem Arte & Pesquisa, Anozero Biennial, Frankfurter Kunstvrein, OK-Centrum, and curated numerous exhibitions with artists such as Miguel Palma, Nikolaj Larsen, Yorgos Zois, Ângela Ferreira, Amira Hanafi, Marilá Dardot, Jeppe Hein, Jane Jin Kaisen, and Rouzbeh Akhbari. Having authored various publications in the domains of art and society, Luísa Santos is, since 2021, editing a book series on the politics of immaterial cultures with the Routledge. Since 2018, she is the co-artistic director of the nanogaleria, an independent curatorial project which she co-founded with Ana Fabíola Maurício.