On Practice: Listening

Serpentine Podcast

On Practice: Listening asks: How can listening form a space of political encounter? What is the difference between listening and hearing? How do other people hear?

This episode features artist Ain Bailey’s collaboration with Micro Rainbow alongside recordings from Pauline Oliveros’ tuning meditations, a sound piece from artist collective Ultra-red and a contribution from academic and sound practitioner Ximena Alarcón.

In this episode of On Practice we highlight the work of one of our long-term partners, Micro Rainbow, who support LGBTQI+ asylum seekers and refugees experiencing isolation in the UK.

You can read more about Micro Rainbow’s work here, and Become An Ally or support the furnishing of their safe houses by sending an item from their Amazon Wish List.

On Practice is produced by Reduced Listening.

Image credit: Joy Yamusangie.

Show Notes

Over the last year through the pandemic, we’ve seen more than ever how our individual actions impact others, how we’re all interdependent. This three-part podcast series explores the practices that can sustain us individually and collectively – Cooking, Listening and Walking - and how they can be used to bring people together to work towards change.

Hosts Amal Khalaf and Alex Thorp welcome artists, collaborators and friends to explore ideas and projects developed as part of Serpentine’s Education and Civic programme, which connect communities, artists and activists to generate responses to pressing social issues. These are projects that have been developed in collaboration with people, centred on the body, the city, and exploring the injustices we experience in our everyday life. Hear from Jasleen Kaur, Elia Nurvista, Fozia Ismail, Ain Bailey, Micro Rainbow, Portman Early Childhood Centre, Ultra-red, Ximena Alarcón, Sam Curtis, Tim Ingold, Voice of Domestic Workers and Katouche Goll.

Each of the three episodes are accompanied by an exercise, kindly shared by the artists, an invitation to join their practice.

ABOUT AIN BAILEY

Ain Bailey is a sound artist and DJ. She facilitates workshops considering the role of sound in the formation of identity and recently held a residency at the ICA, London. Exhibitions in 2019 included ‘The Range’ at Eastside Projects, Birmingham; ‘RE:Respite’ at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland, and ‘And We’ll Always Be A Disco In The Glow Of Love’, a solo show at Cubitt Gallery, London. Bailey was also commissioned by Supernormal and Jupiter festivals to create and perform a new work, ‘Super JR’. Last year, Bailey was commissioned by Radiophrenia Glasgow, a temporary art radio station, to create a new composition entitled ‘Ode To The N.H.S.'. Currently, following a commission by Serpentine Projects, she is conducting sound workshops with LGBTI+ refugees and asylum seekers, as well as working on a commission for Savvy Contemporary’s new radio station, SAVVYZAAR.

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/ain-bailey/

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/sonic-stories/

Instagram: @ain.bailey

ABOUT MICRO RAINBOW

Micro Rainbow supports LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. Our work focuses on supporting isolated LGBT+ refugees and asylum seekers who flee countries like Uganda, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and many other countries where LGBTI people face persecution. Our projects tackle isolation through workshops, peer support groups and our choir. We also support refugees into employment and skills training, and support those starting or wanting to start small businesses. Micro Rainbow opened the first safe house in the United Kingdom dedicated solely to LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees. Our brand new safe housing project is the first of its kind in the UK and provides accommodation for LGBT+ refugees and asylum seekers who face homelessness or dispersal. Our social inclusion tackles isolation experienced by LGBTI asylum seekers who flee their country and, coming to a new country, usually experience feelings of withdrawal.

https://microrainbow.org/ Instagram/Twitter: @Microrainbow

ABOUT SONIC STORIES

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/ain-bailey/

ABOUT ULTRA-RED

In the worlds of sound art and modern electronic music, Ultra-red pursue an exchange between art and political organizing. Founded in 1994 by two AIDS activists, Ultra-red have over the years expanded to include artists, researchers and organisers from different social movements including the struggles of migration, anti-racism, participatory community development, and the politics of HIV/AIDS.

Collectively, the group have produced radio broadcasts, performances, recordings, installations, texts and public space actions (ps/o). Exploring acoustic space as enunciative of social relations, Ultra-red take up the acoustic mapping of contested spaces and histories utilising sound-based research (termed Militant Sound Investigations) that directly engage the organizing and analyses of political struggles. Ultra-red were in residence with the Serpentine Galleries’ Centre for Possible Studies from 2009 - 2013 resulting in the exhibition RE-ASSEMBLY.

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/the-school-and-the-neighbourhood-a-subverted-curriculum-2/

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/ultra-reds-reassembly/

https://halfletterpress.com/ultra-red-workbook-07-re-assembly-pdf-5/

https://centreforpossiblestudies.wordpress.com/2016/07/04/the-school-and-the-neighbourhood-a-subverted-curriculum-launched/

ABOUT Ximena Alarcón

AK to add bio/links

Ximena Alarcón (PhD) is a sound artist and academic researcher interested in listening to in-between sonic spaces and how they are manifested in dreams, underground public transport and the migratory context. Her research focuses on creating telematic improvisations using Deep Listening®, and interfaces for relational listening. Her most recognized works are the interactive sound space Sounding Underground (IOCT-DMU, The Leverhulme Trust Fellowship 2007-2009), the series of telematic sound performances Networked Migrations (CRiSAP - UAL, 2011-2017), and INTIMAL: Interfaces for Listening Relational (RITMO-UiO, 2017-2019, Marie Skłodowska Curie Individual Fellowship). Ximena is a certified Deep Listening tutor and has taught the practice in Colombia, India, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and the UK. She is currently a tutor in the online Deep Listening certification program offered by the Center for Deep Listening (RPI), and works independently in the second phase of the INTIMAL project that involves: an "embodied" physical-virtual system for relational listening in telematic sonic performance; a virtual territory of Latin American migrant women in Europe; and a telematic creation laboratory for the women who inhabit the INTIMAL territory.

https://www.ximenaalarcon.net/ Twitter: @ximesonic

Pedagogies of the ear

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/pedagogies-ear/

The soundcloud of this event -

https://soundcloud.com/serpentine-uk/sets/pedagogies-of-the-ear