On Tuesday, December 13th, between five different times of the day, two different seasons, and can’t even imagine how many frequency channels across and beyond the internet, five of us met for the last Littoral Listening of the year. Five of us met to share and talk about that mysterious and in some way relieving space where everything has space. Space to be, just not sure if to belong. Nor be long… As we might never be there at all. Or are we always there? Repeating. Like Sonia Guiñansaca’s mother in her poem “Glory” – carefully placing bobby pins, lipstick, and hope on land. “Every morning creating self into existence”.
We explored and imagined being in the in-between going from rational to spirit, to our hearts. Starting by reading a dialogue where the interface itself was one of the converters – “Interfacing Materials: An Experiment with Self-Organized Writing,” written by Ana Paula Silva & Matheus Ferreira. Then we listened to Quipu Menstrual/ Menstrual Quipu from KUNTUR KO (2012) by Cecilia Vicuña. Cecilia took us to the space between life and death – to the slow disappearance of “agua dulce” – in the Andes and the world. We prayed with her on repeat, getting carried by what we listened to as some of us didn’t understand her words. Finally, we read Sonia.
After a few minutes to integrate these three beautiful pieces, interesting reflections sparked among us. Maybe we just cannot fully reach the in-between. Perhaps it is the place we are constantly trying to get to and sometimes taste as attention, learning, and transformation, whether it feels like movement or more like floating. “To repeat is to commit,” we all stayed with this thought.
-Irene Trejo, FEELed Lab Research Associate
The FEELed lab 