Ears on the move

What do we notice in acoustic terms when we move to a foreign country or to a new city? What sounds surround us in the places where we live? And how do sounds impact on our familiarity with a certain location?

In the project Ears on the move by Zuhören Schweiz, people from different cultural backgrounds created audio contributions that describe what migration, identity, and belonging sound like to them. The works of three project groups from the Basel area are presented in the Hedi Keller Room.

Inspired by Memory
Individual sounds and soundscapes take us back in time; they remind us of special events in life and shape our sense of home. This is reflected in the contributions by a group of German learners from the K5 Basler Kurszentrum. During a special project week, they recorded sounds from their everyday life and linked them up with personal stories.

They gained inspiration by jointly visiting the exhibition Memory at MKB which looks at how people call to mind memorable events, persons, and places. The social art project by Zuhören Schweiz adds an acoustic dimension to the exhibition.

Experimental approaches
The second project group included members of different migrant communities in Basel. Guided by the sound artist and researcher Budhaditya Chattophadyay, currently visiting professor at the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW, they explored experimental approaches and contemplative forms of listening.

Audio pieces created by students of the FHNW School of Education in Muttenz complement the exhibition. In them, they explore cultural institutions and the way they deal with cultural diversity. While schools, museums and theatres create collective memories and narratives, the students expressed their personal experiences of inclusion and exclusion.

The aim of Ears on the move is to advance cultural participation and multi-voiced discourse in society.

The realisation of the project was supported by the Christoph Merian Foundation, the Basel-Stadt Department of Culture, the Annie and Rudolf Kaufmann-Hagenbach Foundation and other unnamed supporters.