Founded by the artist, writer, and theorist Brandon LaBelle, the Listening Academy is an independent research academy focusing on listening as a philosophical, artistic, social, and somatic issue. This entails a relation to sonic, performative, and ecological practices, sound studies research, and experimental pedagogy. The Academy offers a generative and nurturing framework for researchers and practitioners to engage in collaborative exchange and the sharing of knowledge, as well as workshopping new directions in sound studies and related issues and practices. This includes bringing together individual approaches and work and creating opportunities for material exploration and building new collaborations.

Sonic Spaces hosts this version of the Listening Academy, which will be held in Cairo and run by the German artist and researcher Brandon Labelle, in the studio of the “Sonic Spaces” project in Maadi, and Goethe-Institut Cairo, Downtown, and Studio Feryal in Maadi. The aim of this opportunity is to invite artists and researchers to discuss and share different artistic practices through the concepts of sound and listening to explore common points and areas of interest. We hope that this open framework can support the diversity of individual approaches and forms of exchange across disciplines, where we can think together about different questions and sound issues.

The program includes presentations, workshop discussions and performances, which will last a week in which we explore together through the movement of the city, discussion of research and audio-art materials and conducting listening exercises, how listening can influence creative and critical practices through participation and work together. With this version of the Listening Academy, we conclude the first archival session of the Sonic Spaces project and its themes about moving and movement in the city and their relationship to sound.