Aural Histories
Can we think about histories of listening? What of those experiences of listening that we carry, that shape our bodies as well as ways of living and speaking and imagining? How do our aural histories shape how we hear and what we bring attention to? And what of the inner resonances that sound within our bodies and selves, that haunt our dreams and inspire new paths? And that shift, or are retuned, according to a given place or practice? Aural Histories is interested in researching and reflecting upon listening experiences and how these impact personal lives. And furthermore, to consider how such histories underpin the formation of communities. While oral history remains key to understanding the living reality of communities and the vernacular expressions found therein, aural history has yet to be articulated. The project is founded on recognizing listening’s role in shaping personal lives and how one perceives and responds to the world around; what we hear greatly contributes to emotional life, giving way to what Nirmal Puwar highlights as “affective archives”. These are archives carried in the body and which call for ways of listening as well: if the affective archives held within entail a listening capacity in terms of attending to inner life, how we cultivate such listening gains traction through greater engagement with aural history.
Exploring the topic of Aural Histories, the project will work at transdisciplinary research creations that give expression to personal listening experiences and how these contribute to individual journeys as well as larger cultural communities and worlds. Listening in and with aural histories invites critical and creative insights (or inheards) to the transformative power of sonic, auditory experiences.
Related activities:
Current partners:
Anna Gavanas is a social anthropologist with a focus on dance music culture, working life, migration, and family politics. She has published a number of interview based and archival studies on Swedish electronic dance music scenes with a focus on technological shifts, gender and cultural politics. Gavanas has also worked as a DJ and producer since the 1990s and onwards.
Onkar Singh Kular is Professor of Design at HDK Valand, Academy of Art & Design, University of Gothenburg. His research is disseminated through exhibitions, programming, education and publications. He has guest-curated exhibitions for The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, Karachi, and the Crafts Council, UK. He was Stanley Picker Fellow in 2016, Artistic Director of Gothenburg Design Festival in 2017, Co-Artistic Director of Luleå Art Biennial in 2022 and curator of the sonic festival, Bass Cultures, How Low Can You Go! Falkenbergs teater, Sweden in 2023.
Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer, theorist, and artistic director of The Listening Biennial. His work focuses on questions of agency, community, pirate culture, and poetics, which results in a range of collaborative and extra-institutional initiatives, such as Communities in Movement (2019-2023) and Oficina de Autonomia (2018-). In 1995 he founded Errant Bodies Press, an independent publishing project supporting work in sound art and studies, performance and poetics, artistic research and contemporary political thought. His publications include: Poetics of Listening (2025), Dreamtime X (2022), Acoustic Justice (2021), The Other Citizen (2020), among others.