We are more than thrilled to announce that our Reading Group – a monthly chance to meet informally, read and collectively discuss topics that arise from the selected text-based work – is back for the Autumn season!

Fall’s program reflects and engages in a dialogue with PUBLICS current discourse and is mostly focusing on presentness of the voice in its many sonic forms, vocal modes and acoustic modalities, as well as extending into the topics of sound and listening.

First autumn’s session – The Political Possibility of Sound – takes place on 19th of October, between 5-7pm. Featuring a publication by Salomé Voegelin under the same title, October’s meeting highlights an essay on Hearing Subjectivity: Bodies, Forms and Formlessness. The essay focuses on the ‘skinlessness of sound’ considering how the formless quality of sonic materiality opens up possibilities for ever-changing shapes and identities. Commenting on the participatory nature of listening, the text then goes on to discuss the performance, writing and sound works of artist Evan Ifekoya. During the session, we will watch two works by Ifekoya: The Gender Song (2014) and Disco Breakdown (2014).

Introduced as a new element in our Library program in spring, Reading Group is co-initiated and led by Jo Hislop.

In order to get a PDF copy of the selected publication in advance, send an email to info@publics.fi.

Jo Hislop is an artist and producer working across photography, film and writing. Her work explores the nuances and intricacies of sensorial and bodily experience. Originally from the North of England, she is currently based in Helsinki.

Salomé Voegelin is Professor of Sound at the London College of Communication, UAL, and an artist and writer engaged in listening as a socio-political practice of sound. She is the author of Listening to Noise and Silence (2010), Sonic Possible Worlds (2014) and The Political Possibility of Sound (2018). Her work and writing deal with sound and the world sound makes: its aesthetic, social and political realities that are hidden by the persuasiveness of a visual point of view.