Hearing Voices

Hearing Voices is a study line, a theme that links programming across venues and platforms.

The phrase “hearing voices” has been associated with a state of mind where an individual hears words imperceptible to others. Authors over history have frequently discussed the phenomenon of hearing the “softly spoken” or the “whispering voices” of their characters engaging with them through a mental inner dialogue.

We like to think about “hearing voices” as a metaphor for a “listening” that generates real recognition, empathy, and understanding. Such voices that have been silenced or under-represented in today’s public square, or contemporary cultural debate, should perhaps be given a new public hearing, counter-balancing the current “normalization” of violent discourse in our social and political life.

We are interested in the political agency of this hidden “voice” and its unique ability to engage with others while underscoring the differences that help us better understand the communal. Through a series of exhibitions, public programs, and events, we would like to consider how subjects and bodies, individuals and collectives creatively negotiate systems of domination through speaking and listening, looking for a new acoustic and linguistic resistance.

Image: Pedro Asquini. “Operativo Pacem in Terris”, 1972. Based on Palabras ajenas [The Words of Others], 1967 by León Ferrari. Installation view at Teatro Larrañaga. Lisa Banti Archive, Buenos Aires.

Other active study lines

Showing-doing

The importance of the body is particularly central in our programs through practices closely linked to performance. The theorist Richard Schechner described performance as a mode of operation or what he called “showing-doing,” in which an action is performed and rehearsed with a specific intentionality.

Explore Showing-doing →