Thursday 8 June 2023, 8pm
Duncan Whitley
The Caller of the Winds
A new spatial sound work exploring the analogies of sound, wind and breath. This work will develop on recordings made collaboratively with Mawó Mendoza and the Wichí community of Santa Victoria Este II, during an experimental project in the Gran Chacho of north Argentina in 2016. The Creature in Between project was co-conceived by artist Claudia Fontes and shaman Tiluk Mendoza, and organised by The Appreciation Society.
Read more about The Creature in Between here: https://claudiafontes.com/project/the-creature-in-between
Shirley Djukurnã Krenak
with Nathaniel Mann
[Untitled, 2021] (surround sound)
In this session the objective is to present aspects of the Krenak culture and its direct intersection with healing processes via indigenous ancestry. Listening is an extremely important skill for the indigenous peoples of Brazil, considering a broader meaning of the term. Listening is the possibility of expanding our conceptual capabilities and understanding the multiple relationships in which we are inserted. And this involves humans and other-than-humans in amerindian philosophies, which the session will try to demonstrate through Shirley's experience of amerindian chants and sounds (all from the Krenak culture). However, one cannot fail to mention that all these amerindian experiences suffer varied interferences and we will be experiencing it in this session, highlighting the multiple (and sometimes negative) connections to western society. The ultimate goal, therefore, is to provide an experiment with possible worlds through listening, realising how amerindian peoples understand and practice their relationships with many entities.
For more information about the Krenak people, watch this recording (in portuguese - other language captions available) and visit this website.
João Vitor de Freitas Moreira provides textual translation. Portuguese to English translation is by Thiago Jesus.
Sacha Taki
Voces y Cantos de la Selva (voices and songs from the rainforest)
Sacha Taki is a proposal that rises from the Kichwa Kawsak Sacha Ancestral Population (PAKKS) in the Ecuadorian Amazon that seeks to recognize the value of the biocultural interweaving between communities and the jungle through its sounds. This project seeks that, by declaring this manifestation as a biocultural heritage of humanity, not only an important area of the most biodiverse place on the planet could be preserved, but also the multiple human and more-than-human relationships associated.
You can find more about the project and PAKKS in the following links:
https://pakks.org.ec/
https://sachawarmi.org/en/sacha-taki-songs-of-the-forest/
https://web.facebook.com/kawsaksacha
About the documentary
This documentary was made by the filmmaker Gustavo Chiriboga and produced by the biologist Paola Moscoso, based on an interdisciplinary ethnographic-artistic work by the Voces del Bosque, thanks to the support of the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP) and Dr. Alice Eldridge.
To learn more about its authors and Voces del Bosque you can visit the following links:
https://www.vocesdelbosque.com/
https://www.instagram.com/vocesbosque/
https://web.facebook.com/vocesdelbosqueEc
SPANISH VERSION
Acerca de Sacha Taki: Voces y Cantos de la Selva
Sacha Taki es una propuesta que se levanta desde el Pueblo Ancestral Kichwa Kawsak Sacha en la Amazonía del Ecuador que busca reconocer el valor del entretejido biocultural entre las comunidades y la selva a través de sus sonidos. Este proyecto busca que, mediante la declaración de esta manifestación como patrimonio biocultural de la humanidad, no solo se mantenga y proteja el lugar más biodiverso del planeta, sino las múltiples relaciones asociadas humanas y más que humanas.
Acerca del documental
Este documental fue realizado por el documentalista Gustavo Chiriboga y producido por la bióloga Paola Moscoso, a partir de un trabajo interdisciplinario etnográfico-artístico del colectivo Voces del Bosque.
Para conocer más sobre sus autores y Voces del Bosque puedes visitar los siguientes enlaces:
https://www.vocesdelbosque.com/
https://www.instagram.com/vocesbosque/
https://web.facebook.com/vocesdelbosqueEc
Music and Other Living Creatures is a series at Cafe OTO (curated by OTO Projects) dedicated to music about, with, or by other living creatures. Birds, tigers, chickens, insects and many other living creatures are explored through sound-walks, listening sessions, commissioned performances, live responses and discussions.
EnCOUnTERs is a series of inter-disciplinary events that reside at the intersection between inter- and intra-species encounter and the sonic imagination. Events direct attention to curiosity, the speculative as well as the scientific, and to notions of multiplicity of being, experience and philosophy surveying creative and research-based practices that reference aspects of ecology, ethology and other creature-ologies, bioart and bioacoustics, sound/scape studies, zoömusicology, ethnobotany, critical plant studies, and related fields.
EnCOUnTERs is curated by Helen Frosi (SoundFjord).
Duncan Whitley is a contemporary artist, whose practice spans experimental filmmaking, documentary field recording and spatial sound installation. His work with sound is concerned with sound as a medium-in-between, or connecting tissue between objects and living entities in the world; with sound as a vessel for language, and as tactile, sensible and dynamic material.
His works have been exhibited in the UK and internationally, including at Aesthetica Film Festival, York; Coventry Biennial, Coventry; Flatpack Film Festival, Birmingham; Whitechapel Gallery, London; The Whitworth, Manchester; Centro de Arte Experimental de UNSAM, Buenos Aires; Museo de Bellas Artes de Salta, Argentina; EMASESA, Seville; Serralves Museum, Porto; Château Morimont, Alsace; Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry; Soundfjord Gallery, London; and CTRL_ALT_DEL sound art festival, Istanbul.
His recent film projects Kimberlin and Phoenix City 2021 were developed as special collaborations with electronic musician Abul Mogard.
He is currently working as Filmmaker in Residence with Film and Television Studies at University of Warwick, to research his new project Vanishing Point.
http://duncanwhitley.net
Shirley Krenak is an indigenous woman of Brazil. She belongs to the Krenak people, a native group of the state of Minas Gerais. She has been working on many areas related to the native culture since she was 13 years old. Alongside her brothers, she fights for land rights, ancestry rights and against the violence of the State in opposition to indigenous people. She holds a degree in social communication and currently she develops projects relating to the practice of healing through ancestry and how the native culture of the Krenak people can help change the devastation against mother-earth. In times of the Anthropocene, what she has been stating is that we are in need of a collective way of thinking, acting and listening (including humans and other-than-humans in it). This is part of the philosophy of the indigenous peoples of Brazil and she is putting that into practice in schools around the native land and in the national scenario with Articulation of the Indigenous People of Brazil (APIB) and the Shirley Krenak Institute.
Nathaniel Mann is a singer, composer, broadcaster and sound artist, known for site specific performance, radio documentaries and music and tours with experimental folk trio Dead Rat Orchestra. In 2017 Nathaniel began collaborating with Indigenous Brazilian filmmaker Takumā Kuikuro, he has subsequently collaborated closely with traditional singer Akari Waura, filmmaker Piratá Waura and the entire Wauja Community of the Xingu in the restoration of the sacred cave of Kamukuwaká. During the Kamukuwaká project Nathaniel met Shirley Djukurnã Krenak, and their shared passion for sound set the scene for a future dialogue, which is now unfolding around this session.
João Vitor de Freitas Moreira is a PhD Candidate at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He holds a masters degree in legal anthropology and a BA in Law. Currently he conducts field research with indigenous people, and he is interested in legal anthropology, amerindian rights, ethnology, access to justice and conflict resolution concerning indigenous peoples. He works alongside Shirley Krenak in the Shirley Krenak Institute and collaborates with the development of projects regarding cultural rights, healing through ancestry and others.
