Exercises in Togetherness X Withstanding - Listening to the non-human

FCINY’s Exercises in Togetherness program continues with an online listening session in the company of curator Alaina Claire Feldman, artist and musician Miho Hatori, artist Josefina Nelimarkka and host Elina Suoyrjö. Aligning with recent and on-going work of the speakers, the session focuses on the practices of listening to non-human entities below and above sea levels.

How can we draw on non-visual observations of nature and science to register and account for the non-human and our inevitable coexistence? What kinds of listening practices can bring us closer to understanding and empathizing with various non-human beings and entities around us?

This podcast brings together artists and curators to discuss these questions while introducing non-terracentric audio tracks from the ocean and atmosphere. Each track is introduced by one of the speakers and followed by conversation. By sharing and listening together, we hope to create new understandings and empathy for life situated differently.

Starting in the fall of 2021, the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York has been joining forces with art organizations in Helsinki and New York to realize intimate in-person gatherings as part of the program Exercises in Togetherness. The program aims to offer time and space for gentle exercises in relearning how to be together in the slowly unravelling aftermath of the pandemic. This online event is realized in collaboration with the Mishkin Gallery, and in conjunction with the exhibition Who Speaks to the Oceans? co-curated by Alaina Claire Feldman and David Gruber, and shown at the Mishkin Gallery in the fall of 2022.

FURTHER READING

In her essay, titled ‘Listening to the nonhuman: sounds of air’, Josefina Nelimarkka elaborates on the topics of the podcast discussion in relation to her artistic practice and research.

”In nature, there is no such a thing as silence. Sounds we listen are sounds we share with others. Actions we share are actions we live together. Listening with attention can help to become sensitive in order to recognise the more-than-human encounters. With this writing, I would like to pause the moment and think about the sonic dimension of the nonhuman atmosphere and poetically reimagine different ways of being in the air.”

Alaina Claire Feldman is the director and curator of the Mishkin Gallery at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). She is the co-curator (with David Gruber) of the 2022 exhibition Who Speaks for the Oceans?.

Miho Hatori is an artist/music producer/vocalist/improviser, formerly of the legendary NYC group Cibo Matto. Her latest album was "Between Isekai and Slice of Life."  She has other projects under New Optimism, Miss Information, Salon Mondialité (Inspired by Édouard Glissant), Smokey and Miho (Brazilian music inspired). In addition, she has contributed to the first Gorillaz album and songs with the Beastie Boys. Her creation style is borderless. She does art performances with video art and music. She has performed at The Kitchen NYC, AGO museum, The Broad, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Pioneer Works, Canal 47, etc. Additionally, she produces music for soundtracks, films, commercials. Miho is originally from Tokyo but has been working and living in NYC for too many years.

Josefina Nelimarkka is an interdisciplinary artist working across art, science and technology. Her research-based practice explores the phenomena of the in/visible and its perception through performative processes, real-time environmental data and site-sensitive installations. In her current work, she is interested in the politics of air and the phenomenology of clouds in relation to the future scenarios of climate change. Her multisensory projects are exhibited internationally and virtually. Recently, she was the artist-in-residence at SPACE Art + Technology in London and Finnish Institute in Athens.

Elina Suoyrjö is a curator, researcher and writer, and she works as the Director of Programs at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York.

Exercises in Togetherness is kindly supported by New York State Council on the Arts.