THE ART OF LISTENING: (Beyond) The Here and Now 2024

IC GALLUZZO, Firenze

SOUND STORIES 2025

IC PUCCINI, Firenze

Murate Art District, The Artist-in-Residence in The Schools

For The M.A.D. The Artist-in-Residence in The Schools, THE ART OF LISTENING: (Beyond) The Here and Now in 2024 and SOUND STORIES (Storie Sonore) in 2025, focused on listening in relation to place, exploring its limits and what it means to reveal what is heard and what is not heard, and how it orients, or disorients, us. We explored how to actively engage with place through creative listening and sound practices. Approaches included sound walks, sound journaling, and sound drawing. Additionally, students created an ‘Imaginary Augioguide’ for their school, researching and weaving stories together about their school, their memories, and imaginings, which they then recorded and edited. These recordings are accessible on labels containing QR codes throughout the school for others to listen.

An emphasis of the project was on listening as a relational capacity and creative practice. Taking time to explore listening practices involved not only refining hearing perceptions, but also developing new capacities to become more acutely aware of the world(s) and the places we inhabit, and how we can form/un-form/re-form relations with them. 

As sight is often considered the dominant sense in contemporary society, this project presented a unique opportunity for students to explore an alternative way of sensing and being in the world. During this project, students refined their listening skills, developed a deeper understanding of the sounds around them, and had opportunities to share and express their experiences through listening and sound practices, allowing for new possibilities and relationships to emerge.