LISTEN

This art project and campaign will require active listening. Listening is crucial in solidarity-making. In the months leading up to the submissions deadline, we will be facilitating a Listening Tour of conversations, performances, and offerings. In order for us to genuinely hear and be transformed by the voices shared, we must remain open to exploring our own capacity to listen to ourselves listening. Listening as presence explores unexamined perspectives. We find a shared voice in the desire to understand. Listening demands attendance and engaged witnessing. It facilitates a shared experience between the listener and speaker, a glorious embrace. Deep listening opens and expands our participation, to extend one’s self to the shifting of meanings expressed. When we are deeply listening we are always prepared for the unpredictable, free of expectations, assumptions, or judgement. As people share themselves with us we hold space for their discovering and uncovering of who they are. We make room for their exploration of their identities. We are not fixed or stagnant. Our voices are the blended formation of individual and shared realities. When we listen we must fully immerse ourselves in sound, tone, and vision. Deep radical listening is a state of in-betweenness, grounded in empathy we become transformed by our curiosity and acceptance.