Points of Listening is a collective of artists, researchers and collaborators exploring sound, place and the more-than-human world. Through field-work in remote forests, long-duration recordings, immersive installations and performances, we listen together to sonic landscapes and their sounding creatures.

Our work brings together the voices of forest ecosystems, the rhythms of local ecology and the lived experience of Indigenous communities. In cooperation with local villages, we record 24-hour soundscapes, hold collective listening sessions and develop installations that re-cast traditional human ideas of perception and body-memory in relation to non-human life.

Our practice unfolds in fluid formats: installations, performances, documentary film, and sound walks — each shaped by the rhythms of field-recordings and community-knowledge. Through collaboration with local partners, we rethink the boundaries between artist, listener and environment, and promote a listening practice rooted in respect, co-creation and attunment.

We engage with local communities not as passive subjects but as co-creators and knowledge-holders: together we listen, reflect, and share stories of acoustic worlds whose voices are often overlooked. In doing so, Points of Listening becomes not just an arts collective but a collaborative agency for rediscovering the sonic relationships that bind the human and more-than-human worlds.

Bios of the artistic team

The artistic team of Points of Listening approach nature through sensory experiences by collecting and reconstructing the soundscapes of one of the few remaining primeval forests in the world. The sounds of the forest meet the movements of the dancers, bringing the forest, where various beings intermingle and energy circulates organically, into the theater space. Through the moments of affect created by the sounds of nature and the movements of the performers, the artists once again question the relationship between humans and nature.

– Yonghee Sung, curator Performing Arts Program National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul

 

What does the sound of a forest reveal about our human existence? Can the complex chorus of forests be considered a part of our collective body memory? Does  listening to more-than-human rhythms and frequencies create shifts in our sense of hearing and the sense of ourselves? Are there acoustic relationships between different animal species that transcend beyond its sonic realm?