2023
How do you listen in a foreign land? How do you make yourself open to what you don't yet understand?
Walking La Gomera with friends, we sometimes caught faint whistles: Silbo Gomero, the island's whistle-based language. But we couldn't be sure. Were we hearing it or wanting to?
I built an oversized papier-mâché ear that can't filter, only catch. Constant receptivity without discernment.
I'm not sure if that's closer to true listening or just noise.
Whistling masks for play and spectacle. Eventually I wore the ear seeking Bohema Pulido Salazar's poetry, translated into Silbo by Jesús Armes Torres.
Words into whistles, whistles into listening. I still don't know what reached me.
papier-mâché, video
with help + support from:
Rebecca Styles, Mark Styles, Tina Tos,
Jesús Armes Torres