How could we retrieve the knowledge of coexistence with the many forms of life that inhabit this planet? If some of us still long for that connection — those who sense the violence in the ways we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world — we must undertake the work of retrieving that knowledge ourselves.
But before reclaiming what has been inherited, we must acknowledge what has been lost. We must recognise the ruptures that separate us from our memories, our stories, and our ways of belonging as children of the Earth. This act is mourning.
I understand mourning not as passive sorrow, but as an act of resistance and resilience. To mourn is to remember worlds that have disappeared, the inner worlds as well as the outer worlds.
This workshop is an invitation to those who seek ways of transforming personal experience into artistic research. Through theory, embodied voice practices, collective discussions around a cup of herbal tea, listening sessions, and shared spaces of reflection, we will ask together:
What can the ritual practice of lamentation teach us? What is a sonic space, and what can it provoke? How do voice and sound recall memory? What forms of resonance can sound reveal? What is an embodied archive, and why can it be understood as a decolonial practice? How can storytelling become a practice of emancipation, and from what are we trying to emancipate ourselves?
Together, we will explore how personal histories can become sites of artistic inquiry, collectiveness, and the recovery of inherited knowledge.
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