The first Voicing Silence workshops will take place next week, there are still a few places left to register, please sign up here.

Premise of the workshop:

The silencing of nature.
The silencing of language.
The silencing of silence.
In silencing nature we are silencing ourselves.
In our quest for the singular, where there were many, there are now few.
The incursion of dominant languages – those of capitalism and prosperity – devalues and denudes cultural diversity.
Homogeneity is not an active or empathetic listener.
It is deaf to all but itself.
In the chaotic sonic blast of contemporary life, we cannot hear small voices or the song of the trees.
Yet, we are all born listeners.
This is our quiet awakening.
The land is speaking.
It is time to listen again.

Voicing Silence is an artistic response aiming to understand how the public feels about the 6th global mass extinction we are experiencing today. It questions how we ought to represent it, how to make sense of it and what new languages are need to express and address it.

Part of a wider project, Thinking Through Extinction, and working in partnership with Manchester Museum and University of Leeds, artist Laurence Payot and a team of artists are inviting you to collaborate and contribute to a video piece that will be presented online and at Manchester Museum late 2020/early 2021