Suelo Fértil [Fertile Soil]: Telematic Sonic Performance

During one month eight migrant women, residing in Mexico, the United Kingdom, Austria and the United States explored ideas of migration, belonging and place. By practicing Deep Listening to their voices, dreams, memories, body and the outer environment, they recognised the vast territories that they inhabit and how these connect with their inner self, transcending identities and the sense of belonging to a specific ‘place’; listening to the rich complexity that is generated through space, time and memory in the migratory experience.

Suelo Fértil ended with a public live telematic improvisation between the eight women, taking place simultaneously in London, Mexico and Linz: a conversation with words, and sounds that nourishes a fertile soil to inhabit migratory contexts. Using binaural sound and bi-directional audio, the processes of listening, connection and performance focused on questioning what are the conditions that each requires for that soil to breathe as fertile. They were joined by other women from the audience while exploring through sonic actions the shared migratory conditions of uncertainty, certainty and risk.

Technical problems with the connection between London and Mexico changed the course of the planned performance, and created instead a local performance in London, and a telematic performance between Mexico and Linz. The improvisation that took place in all spaces highlights the courage of women to react creatively to the challenge of crossing Internet borders for sound streaming, and to reflect on all sonic artifacts that came unexpectedly, as interferences that question at once: migration, technologies and the capacity of listening and sounding to communicate one’s deepest feelings and create connections beyond challenging technological conditions.

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