Dis-inhabit Listening: Listening in Dispute in Cracolândia
curatorial statement
curation, research and artistic creation
Dis-inhabit Listening proposes a critical reflection on urban reality and traces a pathway for imagining other ways of listening to the relationships and conflicts among people, places, and contexts. This pathway seeks to break with habitual patterns of listening, which often disregard non-dominant modes of existence. To “dis-inhabit” listening requires an intentional movement of opening oneself to what lies outside and to the other. It therefore implies a displacement – and this does not occur without effort. A dis-inhabit(ed) listening can encourage a dynamic of contact and exchange among bodies, experiences, and emotions.
The works developed in this project result from our interaction over a period of more than one year with the region known as Cracolândia or Boca do Lixo – a territory in permanent conflict, marked by social, economic, and political contrasts, by the perpetuation of police violence, and by the abandonment of the state. The works reflect our coexistence and creative collaboration with other artists, residents, and people who frequent the territory, as well as with different cultural venues and projects in the area, such as Teatro de Contêiner, Bar da Nice, Coletivo Tem Sentimento, Paulestinos, and EMESP Tom Jobim. Through field recordings, testimonies, performances, urban art, music, and sound creation, we invite the public to break with listening habits, dismantle stigmas, and open themselves to stories, bodies, voices, and affects that are frequently silenced.
