Sound. Perceiving vibrations spreading through the air and bodies vibrating to generate them.

A world surrounded by noise, turned by many into an unpleasant trifle, silence can be rare and precious. Big city sound has been mutated, and its opposite has lost its meaning. Fortunately, the latter, when still perceived, is now reduced to a ravenous desire that few can hold in check. Silence. Sound awareness entails the lack of it: practicing stillness, something that is now essential to body and mind, as well as to dialog and inclusion.

Directed by Raquel Castro, Lisboa Soa brings together, under the scope of sound art, performances, installations and workshops in several venues across the capital. It invites everyone to a collective meeting, where the sonic impact of each element is a decisive influence on the established connections, the understanding and the readings of the place. Active listening is the festival’s proposal, meaning awareness about space, the Other, and the Self.

The festival takes place this year at Carpintarias de São Lázaro and Quartel Cabeço de Bola, from August 24 to 27.

What led to Lisboa Soa?

Raquel Castro: This initiative emerges from a professional and academic trajectory that I started working on 20 years ago, dealing with sound and acoustic ecology issues. I am constantly amazed by the multiple aspects of sound, having always considered that these can and should be thought of from different perspectives: political, cultural, ecological… I have always witnessed sound installations and looked into the best way to exhibit sound, awakening me to its use as a stimulus to our ability to listen. The best way to exhibit sound is therefore similar to setting up a time to think about it.

What makes this festival unique?

Lisboa Soa is not an experimental or electroacoustic music festival, restricted to a niche audience, but rather a pursuit to bring sound art to people in an affordable and open way. It also intends to have an educational component, considering that the major legacy of acoustic ecology is to have developed a set of tools for culture and listening education.

More than a “festival”, I welcome the idea of a meeting in a public place, where everyone has time and awareness to focus on the act of listening, which is often neglected in everyday life.

On active listening, I would like you to elaborate on the sentence «Without attention, there is no ethics for action. Listening is essentially a political act.»

Reflecting on the manifold crises around the world and in society, we often find that there is a lack of dialogue towards understanding. I believe that the act of listening is not only with the Other, but also with ecosystems and cultural symbols, in other words, everything that allows us to improve our comprehension of our surroundings. Yet, for a dialog to be healthy, we must have the ability to listen to each other, otherwise an open two-way road is hopeless. There is no ethical side without attentiveness. By being deaf, oblivious to our surroundings, detached from the will to communicate, we cannot work together as a collective, as a whole.

You present the festival as one that «…aims to enhance artistic creation, but also to provide it with a social, political and ecological context…».  We can assume that there is a line of work built on the relationship with the place and its communities. How does this relationship occur and what are the specific social and political issues to be discussed?

Lisboa Soa has been using different public venues, which are by definition places where people can meet and discuss ideas. And, especially after the pandemic, they have acquired a new role as places that should provide safety and personal well-being. Given all its features, public space is an environment that can harbour multiple dynamics and diversities.

This year, Sonora – the association responsible for the festival’s production and conception – has settled at Quartel Largo de Residências, in Largo Cabeço de Bola, an inclusive place where many people working in different artistic and cultural areas coexist, epitomizing what this edition is all about: the need to establish urban arenas that accommodate different groups of people in coexistence. Lisbon, a city that has always been known for its neighbourhoods, is starting to become homogeneous, leading to changes in identity, diversity and social justice; issues that have given rise to this year’s theme Multiplicities.

Drawing on that, the festival calls for a focus on urban sustainability. What exactly does that mean?

We have always been an environmental sound art festival, so ecological issues are strongly embedded. By urban sustainability, I mean the fact that, in a city (where contrasts are more noticeable), different social groups differ in their ability to live in places that are theoretically more adapted to their well-being and prosperity. This is thinking about sustainability as a matter of equality, justice and inclusion. Not only taking it from a human perspective, but also from a global viewpoint – all the ecosystems, beings and elements inhabiting the planet.

Rather than just addressing the term as a concept, how is the festival developing that approach? Can you mention examples that make your practice more sustainable?

This is a key debate and one that I continue to have to assure greater monitoring of the consequences. We avoid overprinting, producing useless materials, and we always try to produce locally, prioritizing works made in Portugal. Nevertheless, we are struggling with the huge air travel burden. For example, we would love to extend the stay of the artists for a residency or workshop, besides the concert/performance; this would provide a better justification for the ecological footprint, leading to a greater artistic diversity and, at the same time, providing a creative opportunity for the author himself. There are many aspects to be improved, but I recognize that their effectiveness depends on a series of resources, particularly economical, which we do not have.

The festival often draws on natural elements to bring the public closer to a sensory experience beyond the urban landscape. Musing briefly on this, I ask: is it easy to find nature/the natural in central Lisbon? And silence?

I find it interesting to wonder how to bring natural elements into the festival, as I stand for biophilia, human beings’ innate inclination to seek connections with nature and other life forms. I also believe in the need for nature to exist in the city, as it seems to me that Lisbon is diluting these concerns for the sake of tourism.

Silence holds enormous symbolism. The existence of sound is translated into life and health in our streets. Indeed, in marginalized or repressed societies, silence is a reflection of dictatorship, censorship, or an inability to make oneself heard. In big cities of more developed countries, silence is classicist – only higher social groups can access and protect it. It has many faces. One major problem today is that, with so much noise, not every voice has a chance to express or make itself heard. The idea of taking a break is vital: sound can only be perceived when absent. The interest in working in public venues comes from their being an arena where various sounds, voices, rhythms and beings gather. We like the idea of inviting people into spaces that are theirs to reinvent their experience of that location through sensorial fruition, providing a connection to that site in a way that is often forgotten in everyday life. This experience consists also of becoming aware of the diversity that naturally exists in this environment, both the presence of different elements/beings and the many sounds and voices, our own, of the Other and the place.

What can we expect from this year’s program?

Arising from the notion of Multiplicities, or exploring the many cities within a city, we have drawn a multigenerational and non-segmented program, as we welcome the idea of people from different areas, ideas and ages finding an interesting proposal in which they can take part.

This edition is based on a strong educational program, with workshops for both children and sound professionals. Some of them connected to performative listening and singing as well. We will hold a multisensory walk, guiding the public to experience the place through all five senses, stressing once again the importance of coexistence between humans and non-humans. We will also have several sound installations and, in the late afternoon, concerts and performances at Quartel, complemented by an identical program at Carpintarias de São Lázaro.

More information at: https://lisboasoa.com/