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    Can We Really Hear Each Other?

    Listening with care: Curatorial research beyond the visual

    Master Cultural Critique - Curatorial Studies

    Can We Really Hear Each Other?, Pauline Brämer, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste

    The thesis explores sound as a political and cultural element in modern exhibition practices, researching how we can listen as a curatorial method based on care instead of extraction. It looks at how sound interacts with and builds our understanding of space, time, embodiment, and the relationship between listeners. Departing from a critique of visual-culture-centered exhibition practices in Western art institutions, it develops a framework for listening with care as a relational, ethical, and situated practice. Two case studies are presented: MADEYOULOOK's 'Mafolofolo: a place of recovery', documenta fifteen (2022), and sound-based practice at the Venice Biennale (2024). The thesis discusses the theoretical underpinnings of listening with care, while an in-depth listening analysis explores modes of perception and understanding. It also examines how listening practices are affected by a sonic color line, silence, and exclusion. The research maintains that listening is not a passive act but an engaged, embodied, collective and political act that unfolds across multiple senses and temporalities, and extends beyond normative Western notions of hearing to include more-than-human relations. It foregrounds vulnerability and, in the conclusion, proposes that the concept of listening with care be understood as both a method of research and a way of living that acknowledges the nuance, opacity, and limitations of what can be understood.

    Details

    • Discipline

      Kunstvermittlung

    • Project Type

      Abschlussarbeit

    • Field of Study

      Master Cultural Critique - Curatorial Studies

    • Authors

      Pauline Brämer

    • Date

      2026