Decolonial Imaginings

of-the-now: Decolonial Imaginings is a workshop taking place virtually between July and October 2020. It is co-produced with the Canadian Music Centre in BC, and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

What would it be like to listen decolonially? How can creative sonic practices be thought in light of inherent structures in settler colonial aesthetics? In this workshop project, Stó:lō/Skwah scholar and author Dylan Robinson leads six settler-artists in reading, discussing, and responding to text and concepts from his new book Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies.

“Hungry listening is derived from two Halq’eméylem words: shxwelítemelh (the adjective for settler or white person’s methods/things) and xwélalà:m (the word for listening). […] I use shxwelítemelh to refer to a form of perception: ‘a settler starving orientation.’ […] Placed together, the shxwelítemelh xwélalà:m / ‘hungry listening’ names settler colonial forms of perception. […] Shxwelítemelh xwélalà:m does not reduce simply to ‘listening through whiteness;’ it is a state of perception irreducible to racial identity. As with any expression of positionality, hungry listening must be understood on as continuum of listening practices that includes subtle and significant gradations of normativity.”

(Hungry Listening p.2-3)

of-the-now: Decolonial Imaginings seeks to imagine non-hungry modes of listening and practice. This project focuses on non-Indigenous and settler composers to identify and demonstrate their specific responsibilities to decolonial work, distinct from the work of resurgence by Indigenous artists. Co-curated by Dylan Robinson and Mitch Renaud, the project unfolds July-October 2020 with artists Juliet Palmer, Kelly Ruth, jake moore, Mitch Renaud, Jocelyn Morlock, and Luke Nickel. Through the project, we will learn about their practices, see and hear their work, and follow them through their process of self-reflection and creation.

The project takes place over three stages. First, the six participants and co-curators come together in a group conversation to raise questions and offer prompts for reflection from their readings of the book. Second, each composer will create a new work in the form of an imagined composition that will be presented and discussed in small groups. Lastly, all artists will join the co-curators to reflect on the process as a whole.

We invite you to join the conversation by sharing your questions and thoughts.

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