Brandon LaBelle

El segundo día de THE LISTENING BIENNIAL en Casa del Lago UNAM nos reunió para escuchar de otras maneras 🌿🔊 Un cierre sensible y expansivo en el marco de El Aleph. Festival de Arte y Ciencia 2026. Participaron: Brandon LaBelle y Tito Rivas ( @tito.phonos ), Cinthya García Leyva ( @cinthya_gl ), Fred Moten #fredmoten y Brandon López ( @bantlopez / @movimientos_aberrantes ), Lena Ortega Atristain ( @lenaortegaatristain / @bosquevacio ), Guillermo García Pérez ( @guillermogarpe - Espacio de escucha MUAC), Susana González Aktories #susanagonzálezaktories , Martha Riva Palacio ( @balighieri9 ), Paulina Carrillo Grange ( @paulinagrang ) y Rossana Lara ( @rossana.lara / Círculo contra el soundscape - @circulo_contraelsoundscape ), Mónica Nepote ( @neponita )y Pablo Domínguez Galbraith ( @_plabos_ ), Inés Gutiérrez (Cirrina Lab- @cirrinalab ), Amanda Gutiérrez ( @cadadosis ), ejival ( @ejival ), Tania Candiani ( @tcandiani ) con Coro El Palomar ( @elpalomarmx ) y Juanjosé Rivas ( @jrivasmx ). 📹Mara Arteaga

Así se vivió el primer día de actividades de THE LISTENING BIENNIAL en Casa del Lago UNAM 🌿🔊 Durante dos días, la escucha se convirtió en un espacio de encuentro, reflexión y experiencia compartida. Conversaciones, mesas y conciertos trazaron nuevas formas de habitar el sonido, lo colectivo y lo sensible en el marco de El Aleph. Festival de Arte y Ciencia 2026. Participaron: Brandon LaBelle y Tito Rivas ( @tito.phonos ), Cinthya García Leyva ( @cinthya_gl ), Fred Moten #fredmoten y Brandon López ( @bantlopez / @movimientos_aberrantes ), Lena Ortega Atristain ( @lenaortegaatristain / @bosquevacio ), Guillermo García Pérez ( @guillermogarpe - Espacio de escucha MUAC), Susana González Aktories #susanagonzálezaktories , Martha Riva Palacio ( @balighieri9 ), Paulina Carrillo Grange ( @paulinagrang ) y Rossana Lara ( @rossana.lara / Círculo contra el soundscape - @circulo_contraelsoundscape ), Mónica Nepote ( @neponita )y Pablo Domínguez Galbraith ( @_plabos_ ), Inés Gutiérrez (Cirrina Lab- @cirrinalab ), Amanda Gutiérrez ( @cadadosis ), ejival ( @ejival ), Tania Candiani ( @tcandiani ) con Coro El Palomar y Juanjosé Rivas. Gracias por acompañarnos. 📹 Mara Arteaga

We are delighted to welcome you to Aural Histories - June 4 at MONO in Växjö! In what ways do histories of listening contribute to personal and collective identities? How do our aural histories influence how we listen? And what of the inner reverberations that sound within ourselves, haunting our dreams and inspiring new paths? Meet Anna Gavanas, Onkar Singh Kular and Brandon LaBelle for an evening of performative presentations that give narrative to transformative listening experiences and how they’ve shaped life-long journeys in sound and music. Developed in the context of the creative research project Aural Histories, personal stories emerge as a lens through which to gauge the greater movements of cultural histories and social worlds. No preparation required and everyone is welcome. Free entrance and drop in. Language: English Read more - link in Bio @kulturellauniversitetet Doors 18.30 Starting at 19.00 📍Mono Recordstore, Sandgärdsgatan 1, Växjö Photo: Onkar Singh Kular The evening is a a part of MONOLOG – the popular scientific lecture series organized in collaboration between MONO, the Cultural University this evening as part of Linnaeus Residency Programme and Smålandstriennalen. @b_labelle @onkar.kular @gavanas @kulturellauniversitetet @monovaxjo @smalandstriennalen @linnaeusuniversity --- Vi har glädjen att bjuda in till Aural Histories den 4 juni på MONO i Växjö. Hur bidrar lyssnandets resa till enskilda och kollektiva identiteter? På vilka sätt påverkar våra ljudmässiga bakgrunder hur vi lyssnar? Och hur står det till med de inre klanger som ljuder inom oss, hemsöker våra drömmar och inspirerar oss att ta nya stigar? Möt Anna Gavanas, Onkar Singh Kular och Brandon LaBelle för en kväll med presentationer som iscensätter omvälvande lyssningsupplevelser, och illustrerar hur lyssnande kan forma livslånga resor inom ljud och musik. Se mer information på svenska via länk i bio @kulturellauniversitetet

I'm truly looking forward to our upcoming study program taking place in Berlin. Being in dialogue with our guest artists and thinkers, and in partnership with a diversity of engaging collectives and initiatives, is deeply inspiring, and we're looking forward to bringing together an intimate group of peers to explore and develop listening futures. For more information on the program and how to apply, please visit, or see link in bio: /articles/berlin-study-program

In „Poetics of Listening - Inner Life, Social Transformation, Planetary Practices“, renowned sound studies scholar Brandon LaBelle brings critical attention to listening as a practice, one that can wield significant impact onto individual, interpersonal and community wellbeing. Published by Bloomsbury Academic. @b_llabelle From self-determination to social participation, somatic healing to collective repair, political recognition to ecological engagement, listening is vitally influential in negotiating our most fundamental challenges. Through thoughtful examinations of listening’s role across society, Poetics of Listening convincingly shows listening to be not only important to social struggles, but a form of poetic imagination and communion. It moves listening toward a broader application and view, which includes the ability to listen across human and more-than-human worlds, to listen into or with one’s body, or to listen out for futures to come as well as addressing unfinished histories, and it challenges us to think more broadly about what it means to hear and be heard within today’s complex environments. #poeticsoflistening #brandonlabelle #listeningassocialpractice #zabriskiebuchladen #zabriskiebookshop

I'm glad to share the launch of Witnessing, a new journal developed in the context of the ERC project MUTE. Thoroughly interdisciplinary and multimodal, the journal wishes to create a critical space of dialogue and reflection about the sonic turn in the humanities, arts, social and political sciences. lt aims at enriching and critically informing perceptions about listening, sound, violence, resistance, and marginalization, cultivating a space for critical thinking and critical o/auralities, rupturing and transgressing the boundaries of national archives and archives of violence. Titled Listening as Witnessing, the first issue was published at the end of December 2025. Co-edited by myself and Anna Papaeti, it consists of contributions by: acte vide (Danae Stefanou and Ioannis Kotsonis), Nelli Kambouri, Lefteris Krysalis, Leandros Kyriakopoulos, Brandon LaBelle, Stefanos Levidis, Eva Matsigkou, Anna Papaeti, Dana Papachristou and Yorgos Samantas, and Gene Ray. For more, see: https://witnessing.eie.gr/issues/01/

We’re glad to share news on the continuation of our online series of courses and workshops - with our next course starting in January. On Poetic Knowledge – Toward Cosmopoetic Listening The Listening Academy - Online course with Brandon LaBelle Dates: January 16, 23, 30 February 6, 2026: 14:00 - 16:00 CET For more on how to apply see: /articles/poetic-knowledge-2026 Considering questions of epistemic justice, poetic knowledge is posed as a unique intervention that explicitly works at reclaiming a relation to knowing grounded in the fullness of the senses. In contrast to traditional ideas of scientific objectivity, and the imperative to analyze, dissect, and categorize, poetic knowledge is profoundly sympathetic, subjective, and defined by love, lending to knowing by way of the inside. As the capacity to “see the life within the object” (echoing Robin Wall Kimmerer), a poetic way of knowing is supportive of planetary ethics. As James S. Taylor summarizes, “poetry discovers, science proves,” situating poetic agency as a con-natural force of imaginary power. The online course is devoted to exploring understandings of poetic knowledge as well as poetic agency. This includes the presentation of particular theoretical views and creative, relational practices through prepared lectures as well as invitations to think freely together about the potentiality of a poetic practice. Given the establishment of the knowledge economy as a prevailing system, it becomes important to question the dynamics of what we understand as “knowledge production”. We’ll consider poetic reasoning as a means for reclaiming a material-spiritual logic of connection and correspondence. To act poetically, as Fred Moten highlights, is to refuse to be settled, giving way to the invention of common worlds – a cosmopoetic form of listening.

I'm truly looking forward to performing on Tuesday as part of REstART, a cultural festival organized by the European Forum for Restorative Justice, and taking place at STUK Leuven. Developed as part of my contribution to the ERC project MUTE: Soundscapes of Trauma: Music, Sound, and the Ethics of Witnessing, the performance explores the inner dimension, bringing attention to the story of the body. I’ve also been developing the work in collaboration with a beautiful group of artists in Madrid – Oihana Altube, Raúl Marcos, María Escobar, Fátima Cué Pérez, Catalina Mahecha, and África Nieto. Our collaborations over the years have truly been a source of inspiration and revelation, and I’m sincerely grateful for the chance to carry our work into this special gathering. Dear Friends, my heartfelt thanks 🌸 Meditation on X: He, She, Sun, Dragon As the somatic therapist Susan Raffo emphasizes, experiences of trauma and conflict, and the original wounds of intergenerational violence, extend across time and place, and are housed within individual bodies as deep archives. Based upon explorative workshops on Authentic Movement therapy held with collaborating artists, the performance gives narrative to ways of carrying all that resides within. Importantly, the deep archive emerges as an inner acoustic, where past experiences and multiple voices resound; from the victim to the offender, the witness to the oppressor, the parent to the child, these sound as figures housed within one’s inner dimension. The body as archive is approached as a dense ecosystem whose noises can be both a burden and a gift, suggesting that what we hold within can act as an important guide for grappling with the challenges of an external world. The performance is envisioned as a creative exploration of what it means to carry, to hold, and to listen, giving room to the dreaming background haunting restorative action. /tuesday-9th-december

New session of The Pirate Academy Time: 13:15–15:00, Nov 20, 2025 Location: University Library, Linnaeus University, Campus Växjö No preparation required and everyone is welcome. Brandon LaBelle (US), Artist in Residence in Linnaeus Residency Programme and The Cultural university invites to the seminar series The Pirate Academy addressing the topic of Poetic Knowledge – a collective and collaborative space for critical thinking, where art as knowledge production, poetic knowledge, and the will to listen are central. This series combines lectures, artistic practices, and participatory activities such as listening, drawing, walking, and sharing, aiming to stimulate both critical thinking and collective reflection. The Pirate Academy are taking place during autumn 2025 and spring 2026 in and around Linnaeus University in Växjö. Introduction to The Pirate Academy and info about Linnaeus Residency Programme in Profile.

book launch Rebecca Collins and Brandon LaBelle (ed.) - The Listening Biennial Reader, vol.  2 (Errant Bodies Press) Mercoledì 22 Ottobre, h 18:30 Editor and artistic director Brandon LaBelle will introduce the publication, and the Listening Biennial project, along with Francesco Bergamo, Nicola Di Croce, and Piersandra Di Matteo, sharing insights into contemporary critical and creative listening practices. Presented in collaboration with the Sounds Studies Hub, University of Venice. During the bookshop opening, it will be possible to listen to audio works connected to the Listening Biennial. Following an edition of The Listening Academy held in Bergen, Norway, the second volume of The Listening Biennial Reader brings together contributions from researchers, artists, educators and organizers involved in a range of pertinent initiatives and practices. Framing the publication is the concept of Infralistening which is put forward as a creative, critical methodology. Infralistening is figured as a way of listening-into particular issues, histories, and urgent realities; it is a listening that comes up from below, that shadows certain territories, that wraps itself around sites and struggles, giving momentum to action and intervention. As the essays, interviews, projects and proposals presented in the Reader demonstrate, listening not only enables ways of building community, it moreover aids in fostering practices concerned with reworking dominant knowledge regimes: to foster transdisciplinary meeting points, holistic understandings, and forms of activism by way of an acoustic approach. This allows for critical arguments, engaged work, and poetic research in support of a vitalist, affirmative politics.  Edited by Rebecca Collins and Brandon LaBelle. Including contributions from Miguel Buenrostro, Wanda Canton, Rebecca Collins, Henry Ivry, Nanna Hauge Kristensen, Brandon LaBelle, Margarida Mendes, Sara Mikolai, Mhamad Safa, Luísa Santos, James Webb.

#ListeningBiennial LISTENING FUTURES An evening of experimental sound and listening performances curated by Brandon LaBelle (@b_llabelle ) and Piersandra Di Matteo (@piers_dima ) 🎧 24/10/2025, 18.30-22.00 The evening aims at bringing attention to listening as a transformative experience, one that influences personal life stories and relationships to each other. What are the foundational listening experiences that have shaped how we hear? Are there stories that echo across the generations, acting to carry cultures and understandings of the past? And how can we listen out for the futures we long for, bringing creative and critical attention to shaping change? Following these lines of inquiry, the evening consists of presentations, performances and conversations, convivial moment, inviting ways of listening and reflecting upon our listening futures. PROGRAM 6.30 pm Brandon LaBelle Listening Panel Open conversation on listening memories (50’) 7.30 pm Max Bloching, Annette le Fort, Israel Martínez & Dalia Huerta Cano, Oficina de Autonomia Listening screening Refreshments at @abczattere 8.30 pm June Yu Polyphony Reading Performance (25’) 9 pm Aliaskar Abarkas (@aliaskar______abarkas ) La La La La La La By Slip / Less / Less / Less / Less / Nyte Performance (45’) 💚Free entry. More info → scuolapiccolazattere.com The Listening Biennial (@listeningbiennial ) in Venice is sustained through the collaboration of Scuola Piccola Zattere, SSH! Sound Studies Hub, Curatorial Laboratory of University IUAV of Venice (@iuav_venezia ), and bruno (@books.bruno ). [The inescapable room, June Yu, Katharina Anna Thomas (spatial design), Ph. Thom Driver]

We're looking forward to launching our new 2nd volume of The Listening Biennial Reader on Saturday at 7pm at Zabriskie Buchladen in Berlin. I'll be joined by contributing author Miguel Buenrostro, to introduce the publication and The Listening Biennial project, sharing insights into our critical and creative listening practices. The publication is launched as part of The Listening Biennial 2025, currently active through October 26. It is edited by Rebecca Collins and Brandon LaBelle. @zabriskiebuchladen @listeningbiennial_berlin @listeningbiennial @mig_bnrstr Including contributions from Miguel Buenrostro, Wanda Canton, Rebecca Collins, Henry Ivry, Nanna Hauge Kristensen, Brandon LaBelle, Margarida Mendes, Sara Mikolai, Mhamad Safa, Luísa Santos, James Webb. Following an edition of The Listening Academy held in Bergen, Norway, the second volume of The Listening Biennial Reader brings together contributions from researchers, artists, educators and organizers involved in a range of pertinent initiatives and practices. Framing the publication is the concept of Infralistening which is put forward as a creative, critical methodology. Infralistening is figured as a way of listening-into particular issues, histories, and urgent realities; it is a listening that comes up from below, that shadows certain territories, that wraps itself around sites and struggles, giving momentum to action and intervention. As the essays, interviews, projects and proposals presented in the Reader demonstrate, listening not only enables ways of building community, it moreover aids in fostering practices concerned with reworking dominant knowledge regimes: to foster transdisciplinary meeting points, holistic understandings, and forms of activism by way of an acoustic approach. This allows for critical arguments, engaged work, and poetic research in support of a vitalist, affirmative politics. #listeningbiennial #errantbodies #listeningacademy #listening #listeningasartisticpractice #zabriskiebuchladen #zabriskiebookshop @errant_bodies