Please join us on: September 15, 2023 / 16:00

Dayang Yraola is a curator and sound art researcher based in Manila. She is co-curator of The Listening Biennial, 2023, as well as Associate Professor at the Department of Theory, College of Fine Arts, and an adjunct at the Department of Musicology, College of Music, University of the Philippines.

For her talk at Errant Bodies, Dayang will share and reflect upon her curatorial strategy for The Listening Biennial and its program across Southeast Asia. The curatorial core of designing the program in Asia is anchored on two catchwords that artists in the region have been using generously before the pandemic—community and connection. We consider ourselves (a) community (a barangay, a kampung, a muban, a 村, or a village), where the connections we made as practitioners serves as umbilical cord beyond the geopolitical borders.  We are therefore kins, more than colleagues; we share common goals, more than projects or resources. While this ecology of practice remains in the “post-pandemic” current, with the introduction of Listening Biennial, it became curious to shift the connection from practice to attention (to listening), which implies an expansion beyond the familiar.

In the course of examining, an old favourite platform presented itself useful—tambayan (rumhängen, abhängen). Tambayan is a Filipino term which literally translates to hanging out. It is an informal gathering that maybe purposeful, but also allows "anything can happen".  And this became the preferred attitude in approaching all activities that were included in the Listening Biennial Inter-Asia Program.