‘Listening Happens When You Really Stop Waiting to Speak’

And an opportunity for writers to have events tickets subsidised by the Aurora!

‘It’s when you are in your own company, that you are able to approach an artwork unburdened by ego, self-image, or opinion. From there, a relationship as reciprocal as a conversation can grow between audience and artwork.’

Choreographer Akram Kahn’s words about listening have been sitting on my shoulder recently, reminding me that ‘listening happens when you really stop waiting to speak’ (5th March 2022 This Cultural Life BBC). Often, we stop waiting to speak only when we are by ourselves, in our own company, and more so than ever when we are in the theatre, or swimming underwater, or in a gallery.

I love to go to art galleries and exhibitions in my own company. In a gallery by yourself, it is possible to pass hours without speaking. I find it takes a couple of hours to hear my own quietness, to become suddenly aware of my closed lips, and to shift materiality, from sound and words to thought and time.

When you are quiet for so long that you become made of thought, you no longer meet artworks as a Someone with a capital S, forcing them against their will to meet you back in your decided, packaged and presented form. Instead, the meeting becomes one way: you meet artworks as a cloudy collection of soft and moving thoughts, and, nebulous as you are, the artworks do not meet you back.  

And they should not, or at least not immediately: first, when you are made of thought, you approach an artwork asking nothing from it, producing no opinion, just approaching.

Perhaps later in your relationship with an artwork, once you have approached it, it may meet you back.  

(This is not to anthropomorphise artworks for the sake of whimsy, but to allow for how much of the respect we bring to an encounter with something living, we may bring to an encounter with an artwork).

(This is also not to overlook the significance of invitations given by some artworks, especially by Fluxus throw-away artworks, for a brasher encounter between artwork and audience).

So, it is when you are in your own company, quiet and full of thought, that you are able to approach an artwork unburdened by ego, self-image or opinion. From there, a relationship as reciprocal as a conversation can grow between the audience and artwork.

Sometimes the conversation is heavy and difficult, at other times it is light and agile, nimbly tripping and skipping between you, the artwork and everything you have ever seen, heard, read, or thought. In other words, you and your entire context are present and playing in response to the artworks around you.

To me, that presence and freedom of conversational thought which arrives in one’s own company, is one of the most wonderful human pleasures and privileges, that we should enjoy with greedy abandon.

It seems that most of us are probably more comfortable recounting tales of things we’ve seen and done in first-person plural rather than in singular: a form of social protection that pads our conversations through skittish teenage years. Perhaps, now that we’re at the beginning of our twenties, we’re ready to cautiously shed the protection of ‘we’, to seek and share an experience as an ‘I’, celebrating newly discovered independence.

Talking with friends I’ve found out about things they love to do alone, including gigs at local venues, watching films in the cinema, or going to exhibitions. If you are someone who likes going to things alone, you are invited to take yourself to exhibitions, gigs, films, or anything that takes your fancy, to discover what’s around us and write about your experiences in the form of reviews or musing thought-pieces.

Over to you…

So, let’s enjoy it! And here’s how you can: The Aurora is inviting writers to apply for funds kindly provided to us by Bristol Liberal Arts to subsidise or cover tickets for experiences - to see films, theatre, gigs… whatever takes your fancy! All you have to do is then write a review for publication on The Aurora.

You can apply to the fund by emailing Tom (im21726@bristol.ac.uk) or Jules (af19181@bristol.ac.uk)! Please provide us with:

• Your full name

• Your University email address

• The name of the event, the date and venue

• The ticket cost (please provide a weblink to ticket prices)

• Why you would like to review the event

We look forward to reading your reviews!