October 19 & 20, 2022 / 19:00 – 22:00

The Art Academy – Møllendalsveien 61, Bergen / with Brandon LaBelle, Sara Mikolai and Daniela Ramos

For our current Pirate session we are focusing on the topic of Listening. We’ll think through listening, and how it may relate to our creative practices and processes. In what ways does listening participate in crafting work, in approaching materials, in devising particular methods? If listening affords attuning to others, how does it impact on our own subjectivities and sense of place? And can listening become the basis for new forms of environmental and ecological co-existence, as what can allow for extending what counts as planetary life?

We’ll deepen our understanding of listening in this session of the Pirate Academy. This includes presentations, collective discussion, and performances that invite us into creative forms of listening, alone and together.

Wednesday, October 19 / 19:00 – 22:00: starting with introductory thoughts and perspectives by Brandon LaBelle on the topic of Listening – what does it mean to listen, and how does listening move across bodies and things, insides and outsides, human and other-than-human? Opening up a range of perspectives, listening will be posed as a profoundly relational sense, one that enables empathy and deep friendship, while also making us vulnerable to the noises of the world. Listening is both pleasurable and painful, joyful and troubling – we’ll follow such views to ultimately think listening as a creative, bodily and ethical practice ////// such a practice will be given expression by our guest Sara Mikolai, a choreographer and researcher based in Sri Lanka; Sara will share her work with us, inviting us into a special experience of listening through a dance performance, where she weaves together her expertise in Indian dance practice with a sensing of all that is around, from the quiet of breath to the pulse of ambient presences….  

Thursday, October 20 / 19:00 – 22:00: Continuing our engagement with Listening, guest artist Daniela Ramos will share her work as a curator, mediator, and organizer, especially focusing on her participation in the Empathic Pedagogies Network, a project initiated in the context of Latin America that works at educational, collective, ecologically-attuned practices of togetherness //// Daniela will talk through her practice, and the importance of empathy, by also introducing us to a current activity developed in collaboration with her colleague Aisel Wicab from Mexico City, title: “A toolbox on how to create communities in times of uncertainty” – which includes an emphasis on Listening.