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Audio testimonies

This action consists of collecting and working with audio testimonies given by women artists about their creative processes and artistic paths. These testimonies result from an autobiographical exercise in which the artists are invited to tell themselves in a freer way and not through customarily validated discursive models. What results are autobiographical narratives that radically depart from the traditional heroic biographical discourse, which finds its reference and norm in the white man. As in a conversation, listening is a central component in this relational action. By placing themselves in an attitude of openness towards the other, those who give testimony experience themselves in different ways in different ways as they are willing to tell themselves and, consequently, to listen to themselves; in turn, whoever is in a position to receive the testimony may have the chance to get out of themselves and open up to the other, in an exercise in otherness in which it becomes possible to listen to the other in themselves.
Fragment of an audio testimony given by Brazilian radio artist Janete El Haouli in June 2019
Transcription: “And my father having a Philco radio, which I later inherited, is something that really marked my childhood. He would sit on the veranda listening to news from Lebanon […]. And I remember that we would listen together, that I didn’t understand very well. For me, it was a magical thing for him to listen to Lebanon from that box. After he’d go listen to France, touring all the radios in the world. […] It was a moment I’d stay with him, who worked all week, travelling through all those sonorities, all that noise.
Outcomes
BONAFÉ, V.; CAMPESATO, L. “Many voices, resonating from different times and spaces”: a script for an imaginary radiophonic piece on Janete El Haouli. Feminist Review, v. 127 Sonic Cyberfeminisms, pp. 141-149, 2021.
[full paper]
BONAFÉ, V.; CAMPESATO, L. “Audio Testimonies and the Constitution of Listening Networks”. (presentation). Audio Testimony Symposium, University of the Arts London (online), London, UK, July 2020. [presentation]