Call for Artists: Sound Lab for Fluid Ways of Knowing

The Sound Lab for Fluid Ways of Knowing brings together eight artists working with sound and language, living in Ghana and Germany, to engage in a collective process of artistic research on artistic methodologies of fluidity, orality, non-duality, of process and improvisation.

We have a free spot in the group, and with this call would like to invite artists with a particular interest in an open process of artistic research, in considering “fluid ways of knowing”, and in working collectively.

Project Schedule

• an online preparatory phase Nov 22 - Jan 23 (with 3-4 online meetings)
• a week of in-person Sound Lab with internal and public moments of performance, conversation and workshop at the Brechtfestival in Augsburg, 11 - 18 February 2023
• a week of in-person Sound Lab in Accra, also with internal and public parts, in late April/early May 2023, exact date tbd

With “ways of knowing” we refer to

• different epistemologies, oral ways of passing on history, ways of being intellectual beyond academia, knowledge gained in lived experience, embodied knowledge, to the many ways of making sense. We speak to knowledge produced in the working class, in a process of transitioning gender, in a “queer art of failure”, in the many different regions in the global South, in lived experiences of migration.
• what can be known through the artistic practices working with sound and language of the participating artists. For example in practices of moving beyond rigid grammars towards methodologies of queering and bending, of being in the moment and reacting to the process. Sound is also an artistic medium that is accessible for many and that has the potential to communicate and connect across differences.
• and there is the question of how art contributes to becoming aware of one’s situatedness and agency in society, within capitalism and related structures of power (which relates to the theme of next year’s Brechtfestival).

Participating in the project will include - engaging in an open process of artistic research, considering and working on the topics through your and everyone else’s practices, preparing one public workshop or related activity, collectively working on a performance that will happen on the last day of the lab respectively in Augsburg and Accra. Small additional performances and public interventions are possible. An artist fee and all travel expenses will be paid.

To apply: If this resonates with you and your practice, you are based in Germany, and you are available for all three phases of the project (about 3 weeks overall), please send us a brief email outlining how you see your practice relating to the project and why you are interested, along with a link to your work, by 14 November: fluidwaysofknowing [at] gmail.com

The project is co-organized by Okhiogbe Omonblanks Omonhinmin and Andrea Goetzke, hosted by all2gethernow e.V. (the organization that also hosts Music Pool Berlin) and TAC-Org, co-produced by the Brechtfestival Augsburg and co-funded the TURN2 Fund.

Funded by the TURN2 Fund of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).