The Listening Academy – Skopje
The Listening Academy, Skopje
March 13 – 16, 2025
On Crip Listening
Organized and facilitated by Sofia Grigoriadou, Verica Kovacevska, Brandon LaBelle, and Maja Zeco (with Bojana Janeva and Gjorgje Jovanovik)
To register to attend, please write to: listeningaca@gmail.com
This edition of The Listening Academy brings attention to questions of disability, inviting reflection and shared discussion on issues of accessibility and rethinking dominant sensorial and bodily paradigms. Informed by crip theory and embodied knowledge practices, we’re interested to listen across abilities, opening up possibilities for supporting diversity and new ways of reorienting the normative ear.
The Academy will consist of two formats: a lecture event at the Museum of Contemporary Art and a seminar-lab at Cultural Centar Jadro on embodied forms of listening in and across the city. We’re interested in holding a space for social encounter so as to enliven a broader listening culture and public understanding, which includes concern for (self-)care, interdependence, intimacy, and social justice.
Guiding these investigations is the notion of Crip Listening, which is put forward as an area of creative inquiry. Informed by broader discussions on neurodiversity, ableism, somatic care and crip theory, as well as divergent modes of survival in today’s debilitating environments, we look forward to exploring together the potentiality of a diversely attuned listening.
As part of this, it is our aim and hope to support the participation of persons with diverse abilities.
Crip Listening
How do we listen when our ears can’t hear?
How do we listen when they pick up even the tiniest noises?
How do we listen when we hear a constant rhythm of wheels?
How do we listen to artificial heartbeats?
How do we listen to soothe our fears?
How do we listen to the sound of our voices?
How do we listen in our dreams?
How do we listen when we plunge underwater?
How do we listen when the wind blows near?
How do we listen to empty spaces?
How do we listen surrounded by a million voices?
How do we listen with a critical ear?
How do we listen to those silent voices?
How do we listen to longing?
How do we listen to loss?
How do we listen when we are lost?
How do we listen when our bodies stumble?
How do we listen when we slow down the pace?
How do we listen to those distant voices?
How do we listen to our joy?
How do we listen with care?
How do we care to listen?
Co-sponsored by Radio That Matters, a European Union creative project.