Elena Biserna,Amanda Gutiérrez

Feminist Steps | Sono-soro

Soundwalk, Workshop

Starting from text scores and protocols contributed by Pauline Oliveros, the Blank Noise collective and Elena Biserna, this collective walk functions as a platform to reflect together on gendered listening experiences in public space and to unlearn behaviours assumed to be appropriate, safe or expected while walking.

Considering urban planning and the social organization of space and time as systems that co-produce power relations, including patriarchal ones, the walk aims to question existing asymmetries, share experiences and collectively imagine practices of attention, care, resonance, solidarity, re-appropriation or refusal that might propose other ways of occupying public space. Feminist Steps is an invitation to listen to our feelings and our relationship to urban otherness, and a call to reclaim public space through the vibration of bodies, presence, steps, voices, words and screams.

The Feminist Steps workshop is intertwined with the Sono-soro workshop, which serves as an introduction to Amanda Gutiérrez’s soundwalk of the same name. The Sono-soro workshop is based on listening and sound recording through a walking score, opening reflections on positionality, intersectionality and collaborative care.

Starting from text scores and protocols contributed by Pauline Oliveros, the Blank Noise collective and Elena Biserna, this collective walk functions as a platform to reflect together on gendered listening experiences in public space and to unlearn behaviours assumed to be appropriate, safe or expected while walking.

Considering urban planning and the social organization of space and time as systems that co-produce power relations, including patriarchal ones, the walk aims to question existing asymmetries, share experiences and collectively imagine practices of attention, care, resonance, solidarity, re-appropriation or refusal that might propose other ways of occupying public space. Feminist Steps is an invitation to listen to our feelings and our relationship to urban otherness, and a call to reclaim public space through the vibration of bodies, presence, steps, voices, words and screams.

The Feminist Steps workshop is intertwined with the Sono-soro workshop, which serves as an introduction to Amanda Gutiérrez’s soundwalk of the same name. The Sono-soro workshop is based on listening and sound recording through a walking score, opening reflections on positionality, intersectionality and collaborative care.

Elena Biserna

An independent researcher and occasional curator based in Marseille, France. She writes, lectures, facilitates workshops and collective projects, curates and sometimes performs. Her interests focus on listening and situated art practices related to urban dynamics, socio-cultural processes and the public and political sphere. Her writings have appeared in numerous international publications and journals.

Amanda Gutiérrez

A researcher focused on political listening and gender studies, with a particular interest in soundwalking practices. She trained in stage design at the National School of Theater and holds an MFA in Media and Performance Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work explores everyday aural agencies and collective identities through digital media tools.

Authors: Elena Biserna, Amanda Gutiérrez
Photo: Nada Žgank

Co-production: City of Women Festival
Financial support: Concordia University, European Union
Co-funded by: Goethe-Institut, Culture Moves Europe programme

The views expressed in this work do not reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

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