This is a special edition of conscient roundtable featuring Lara Felsing, Adrian Avendaño, Hildegard Westerkamp, Toni-Leah C. Yake as part of the Listening in Relation gathering at Emily Carr University of Art and Design on March 21-23, 2025 on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, also known as Vancouver. Warm thanks to Julie Andreyev of Emily Carr University, Barbara Adler of The Only Animal, the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE), Raphael Zen (who is a guest on conscient e228), and all the roundtable participants.
Show notes generated by Whisper Transcribe AI
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What does it truly mean to listen? Dive into an exploration of decolonization through sound, art, and personal reflections. Hear from artists who are reshaping their creative practices to honor the land, ancestors, and the unseen voices that guide them.
Chapter Summary
00:00 Introduction to Listening in Relation
02:20 Keynote Panel Overview
06:48 Artistic Journeys and Ancestral Connections
29:58 Dream Technology and Cultural Expression
41:27 Identity, Land, and Heritage
50:01 Sonic Memories and Cultural Practices
57:04 Sacred Spaces and Cultural Resilience
01:03:05 Reflections on Cultural Action and Belonging
01:11:09 The Power of Listening and Silence
01:16:10 Technology, Creativity, and Environmental Impact
01:35:20 Closing Thoughts and Community Engagement
Featured Quotes
Behind the Story
The ‘Listening in Relation’ event at Emily Carr University of Art and Design brought together artists and thinkers to explore the critical role of listening and decolonization. This episode captures the keynote panel of that event, exploring how artists are actively engaging with sound, memory, and the land to challenge colonial narratives and foster deeper connections. The discussion highlights the delicate balance between technology, creativity, and environmental responsibility, prompting a reflection on our relationship with the world around us.
Note: This is an automated transcription that is provided for those who prefer to read this conversation and for documentation. It has been verified but is not 100% accurate (some names might not be quite right). Please contact me if you would like to quote from this transcript: claude@conscient.ca
[00:00:00 - 00:02:17] Claude Schryer (VoiceOver introduction to the panel)
Hi everyone. Another conscient podcast roundtable. This one's special because it's part of a larger event called Listening in Relation at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. So I explained things in the introduction, I won't repeat that, but just to remind you that it's an event. It's an event about decolonized listening or listening in the context of decolonization. And so it was my pleasure to facilitate the panel. And you'll hear four artists in this order.
Lara Felsing, Tony Leah C. Yake, Adrian Avendaño and Hildegard Westerkamp. And so they will introduce themselves. There are bios in the episode notes, as per usual. And I would say this panel was especially interesting and important to me because the organizer, Julie Andreev and myself have been talking about this for a while. How can we actually have an event that is grounded in listening and that really addresses the issue of decolonization? So it was a series of workshops and sound walks and panels and listening sessions and I think was very successful in that way.
And this panel I think represents much of it. You'll hear the, the four artists talk about their work in general and also specifically what they were doing in and around the Listening and Relation event. The land acknowledgement happens within the event. So I won't do that now and I think we'll just jump right in. Big thanks to the panelists, to Julie, to Barbara Adler of the Only Animal, one of the co producers of the event, the host that you'll hear in a second, Raphael Zen and the Canadian association for sound ecology. Episode 226.
[00:02:20 - 00:02:23] Claude Schryer
Listening in relation.
[00:02:27 - 00:03:05] Raphael Zen (begging of panel)
Welcome back listeners. Starting our keynote panel, I just wanted to read what we are gathered here and what this is about. ... I like when the keynote panel says that we are going to discuss listening through the land, but also listening as a guest following our curiosity through listening, non-colonial listening and listening and recording permissions. And I'm going to introduce Claude and then Claude is going to ask the artists to talk about themselves, introduce them.
[00:03:07 - 00:07:21] Claude Schryer
Bonjour. Welcome everyone. I have some notes to read from because my memory is not so good. So this is keynote panel as part of the Listening in Relation event which I'm really honored to be here. And it's also a recording for my podcast. So I've gotten permission from the artist today to put this as a bonus episode of my podcast on art and the ecological crisis. And as Rafael just said, we are talking about listening and material making in relation to creative practices in decolonization.
And I think we're going to be deconstructing decolonization based on the preparatory meetings we had for this panel and touching upon issues that I think are. Are delicate because we're talking about listening, we're talking about coexistence, we're talking about our relationship to the more than human beings around us. And so I think it's good to slow down a bit. We're going to do a minute of silence in just a second and to take this opportunity to listen to each other and to really think about some of the issues and the opportunities that we face when we listen. And yeah, so maybe we'll do the minute of silence. This is something I do whenever I do a panel is to take a moment to. And it's also a land acknowledgement at the same time to think about the traditional custodians of the lands where we are and the listeners wherever you are around the world to do the same.
Here in so called Vancouver, we're on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. And Claire Price, who earlier this morning we went for a sound walk and as she presented it she said, you know, land acknowledgement is an opportunity to listen to requests from indigenous peoples, to actually listen and be present when requests are made of us. So we'll do the minute of silence and then I'll ask the guests to speak. There will be about an hour of presentations and then we'll open the floor to you because I'd really like this to be a conversation Rafael will put around, send around the microphone. If you want to speak, just lift your hand and if you don't want to be part of the recording, just let me know and I can cut it out. Not a problem. So one minute together it.
Thank you for that. Lara, do you want to come here so that you can control your computer? And we'll start with Lara and she'll introduce herself. She spoke last night and she gave us a workshop that was really wonderful here in the Emily Carr University media space. And those listening can't see the beautiful artworks by Lara, but she'll talk about it and hopefully we'll be able to understand better your art practice.
[00:07:23 - 00:07:25] Toni Leah C. Yakes
Lara, did I give you the wrong slide again?
[00:07:25 - 00:21:13] Lara Felsing
No, no, we're good. No, I think that was just me as well. This is what happens when you, or I guess I planned too far ahead. If I would have done that last minute, it would have been fresh in my mind which presentation was which. So I totally feel responsible for that as well, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you Claude, for the invitation. And to Barbara and Julie, this has been just the most amazing 24 hours of connecting and learning.
I am going to start by saying I am not a sound artist myself, but I have had the pleasure and the opportunity to be working with Julie since 2022 when she became my MFA supervisor and I became her RA student. And when I first started, I didn't own a pair of over the ear headphones. It's a big learning curve for me. I'm not technologically advanced. As the first two slides show. I make myself very comfortable in the forests where I live in Treaty 6 territory, which is the traditional lands of my Metis and Woodland Cree ancestors. The forest where I live I see as kin.
It is a place where I harvest traditional plant medicines that get made into salves and teas. I also grow my own tobacco which I sun dry and that is offered onto the land before I harvest. So a lot of what I do is thinking about how a relationship to the land is not just beneficial for ourselves, but for our community and a whole as well as the more than human species and all of our extended communities as well. Where I live, we've had a lot of wildfire and having a practice that is a response to what's happening on the land where I live. It's impossible to not have wildfire make its way into my work in the last couple years. So these blankets that I had made, they were supposed to be made for a different project that I had been thinking about at Metis Crossing and Smoky Lake in Alberta. And it's a traditional gathering place that is now an education center.
And they had brought in a herd of buffalo and I wanted to honor that with blankets that were made with plant pigments that were found as castoffs on the land where I live. But after being evacuated in 2023, right at the time of getting ready to install the MFA thesis exhibition, I had chosen to do a blanket ceremony for the forest of black spruce where I live, where I harvest to, where my kids would walk through to go to school, where we go visit daily and see a lot of deer and squirrels and rabbits. And it's just a very lively and beautiful and healing place. So after I graduated, my external reviewer, Christina Battle reached out and she said there's this opportunity to exhibit at the U of A. And we're looking at ways to approach exhibitions that is more in themed with non colonial practices. So Christina and I set off and we kind of made this inside outside exhibition and when we were thinking of a name, I had told her that I had just made a blanket called Listening to the Land. And so we thought that's an appropriate name for this exhibition because both of our practices are about seeing what's happening on the land and really listening to the stories that come from that.
And in that way, my practice is very much embedded in the practice of listening. So part of the processes that I work with are seeing what's on the land, what's plentiful, what can actually be utilized and made into pigments. I like to show photos of the process because it pieces it together a little bit better about the different stages that the plants and I go through in our relationship to get these put onto the secondhand fabrics that I work with from the community. So these dandelions, this is just a picture of the dandelions in our yard. We have a rewilding yard full of everything from yarrow, plantain, there's saskatoons. Pretty much anything you can imagine is clover growing in our yard. And it's just wonderful to see that.
Not only does it attract pollinators, but it actually is a beautiful natural dye garden. For my artwork, the one thing I do love about working with natural pigments is I feel like they're an extension of being in the forest or the areas. The forests about a two-minute walk from my house, and there's a very wonderful tranquil feeling when working with natural materials. I don't use mordants or anything that is chemical. And I feel like when the materials over time start to fade and transition, it. It does reflect our limited lifespan, and they too are shifting and aging and going to be returning to the land. I try to utilize the wind and the sun for drying things.
A lot of wildfire charcoal goes into my work for drawing, I use clay things that I find by the riverbeds to replicate paints that I would have wanted to use in my practice previously. So a lot of the time with my work, there is an element of waiting and being patient. And some of the work gets. Gets tabled because I haven't yet found the natural materials that I need to finish the work. And there's something really lovely about that. It almost reflects how I feel about harvesting where if one year we're just not at home. We were evacuated in 2023 at the same time that the poplar buds were out.
So that year I didn't make poplar buds salve because I missed that window. And sometimes I feel that way with my materials is sometimes you just have to be patient and kind of go with it. And this is just some of the colors that I get from my yard. There'll be some pine needles, and the pink is pine cones and pine needles. Just from the forest near our home. To the left, those are actually irises that the previous owner planted and they keep coming back. And then that Saskatoon berries on the right and that will.
This is when they're just drying after being freshly dyed and I don't rinse them. I feel like having that bit of a fingerprint and that marking of scent is really important in my work. I think it situates the process really well. When someone gets close up to the work and there's this residue of scent that really shows that the work is living. Sometimes imagery comes into my work from the experiences that I'm seeing on the land. And these baskets were made from photos that I just took with my iPhone while looking outside and seeing what's happening outside our window on the land due to the evacuations and wildfire. And we.
In between the two evacuations, we had a crow move in and have make a nest and set up camp in our front maple tree. And as soon as that happened, I felt like our house was fine, that this crow is much more intelligent than I am and it knows we're safe. And I thought, that's a really good sign. So that's the crow in the first basket. And just seeing the sky change so drastically in the time of wildfire, it's very unsettling. And it's something that I wanted to record because it might serve as a message of where we're at in terms of climate change and what's left to expect. I don't think this is the last of these moments where I'm going to look out the window and see this.
And last summer, we had the same skies when our neighboring community of Jasper, Alberta, saw significant wildfire destruction. And the baskets are also. If you see little bits of green and brown, these will be cast offs from the forest floor that are incorporated and woven into the baskets. So living near Jasper national park, some of the stories that come out of the park and newspapers or word of mouth make their way into my work. I think about listening in my practice as being receptive to concerns that are happening on the land. And I made this piece in grad school and it was really important to me that I kind of worked through what was happening with my materials. And the story basically goes that in the Tonkin Valley, in Jasper national park, this would have been in 2021, one of the last remaining caribou herds was seeing the numbers drastically reduced in a matter of like 10 years.
They were down to a third of the population. And they had figured out that it was actually caused by rec ski tracks in the snow. Because wolves travel linearly, they were actually entering deep into the Tonkin Valley where they don't naturally go, and they were over hunting. So being part of listening to that conversation happen between Parks Canada and the local community, as well as the local ski recreation community, they had made the decision within eight months that they will close the Tonkin Valley to human access between November 15th and May 15th of each year where there's snowfall in hopes that the the caribou herd can repopulate. So seeing stories like that and seeing how something such positive decisions can be made that respect and see the importance of our more than human communities and that when they're out of balance, we'll be out of balance, was just. Yeah, that was the dream outcome. And my last slide is in reference to wildfire again.
I couldn't leave this quirky painting on the Sunshine coast when I was with Branching Songs, it was a whole $9, which was just outrageous that somebody had an original oil painting for $9. So I hauled this home and it sat in our downstairs living room. And when we had our last year's early fire season announced, just by chance, I was at Walmart later that day. And part of being in a small town is it's a. And Walmart seems to be a gathering space for conversation. And I overheard this conversation between a few people that they had this, you know, this bit of like another fire season. And I got out my iPhone and in notes wrote what they said and went home and saw this little painting.
And I thought, well, yeah, what does this mean to the more than humans that we live in community with? And what are they feeling right now? And are they anticipating that this might be another year where they have to change their habitat or consider how they're going to survive during times where we don't have as much snowfall and where things are already drier and there might be a reduced food source? So thinking about listening, hopefully not eavesdropping, but listening as a way to exercise concern about the world around us and thinking how we can work together as community and think about who all we're in community with.
So thank you.
[00:21:14 - 00:21:36] Claude Schryer
Thank you, Lara. You can pass it then. Just last night we talked a lot about wildfires. We won't be able to get into it too much today. But it's an interesting topic, how we adapt and how we relate to loss and regeneration. So, Tony Leah, thank you for being here.
[00:21:37 - 00:21:37] Toni Leah C. Yakes
Thank you.
[00:21:38 - 00:21:39] Claude Schryer
And so the floor is yours.
[00:21:45 - 00:23:07] Toni Leah C. Yakes
Sego sugo. Tony Leah. Hello. My name is Tony Leah. In terms of my kinship, I am the daughter of Harold Ruth, a Euro settler from Newfoundland, and. Oh, okay. Sorry. And through my mother is Kimberly Ann Yake.
And through my bloodlines, I am Kanienʼkehá꞉ka Mohawk from the Six Nations grand river territory. And because Mohawk is a matrilineal community, I get my clan through my mother's bloodline, so Turtle clan. Oh, how do I switch the. Do you have a file in here?
Yeah, I think it's the. Tony Leo. Yeah. Do you want a full screen?
[00:23:08 - 00:23:08] Claude Schryer
Sure.
[00:23:16 - 00:23:22] Hildegard Westerkamp
I don't know where the full screen is. Oh, thanks. Thank you.
[00:23:24 - 00:29:56] Toni Leah C. Yakes
Yeah, so I just wanted to give sort of like four kind of different quadrants of what my work and some of the things I'm going to share. Touch on. So for myself, listening as a creative and decolonial practice. Listening and exploring sound in ways that engage memory, dreams, and the unseen world. A lot of my work draws from Mohawk epistemologies. And, you know, this is sort of a practice that, like, questions relationality and listening as sort of a generational process. And one of the questions that I kind of continually ask myself as an artist is how does listening influence, you know, my creative choices in the work that I create and, you know, from everything from the field recordings that I take to interpreting my own dreams.
So material making as a way of reclaiming knowledge. I like to involve layering sounds, using symbols, symbology in my work. And I work with a lot of art, archival materials. That's personal archive, but also researched archive materials, which I'll show in some work later on as well, sort of to reimagine the past and present and how these things are communicating with each other. Yeah. And also just the act of working with materials in general, whether they're sort of like digital artifacts or physical. In terms of creating collage, I have a piece, an image of a piece that I'll show where I actually use digital artifacts to sort of bead into a digital audio workspace.
So, yeah, it becomes a way for me to sort of navigate and challenge colonial narratives about how I work in terms of my work, dreams, memory, and world building. So there's a lot of, like, relationality between myself, land, ancestors, and imagined figures, although I'm not so sure imagined is the right word. But just to sort of give an idea. I'll show a piece in a moment. Wagenata Ronghage. And this piece was constructed from what I consider dream technology. So how do dreams function as an archive?
And how do they sort of resist linear colonial time structures, decolonization through alternative knowledge systems? So my work, I think, tends to resist Western knowledge hierarchies by incorporating oral traditions, soundscapes, and just like, personal intuitive knowledge, but also like working within archival materials. And again, another question that I ask myself as an artist is, you know, how do sort of personal methodologies offer a different way of knowing or making sense of the world? So this is the piece, Wagenata, or it's just an excerpt?
Hopefully it is, yeah. So that was an excerpt. The piece is about five minutes long.
[00:29:56 - 00:29:57] Lara Felsing
Thank you.
[00:29:58 - 00:32:58] Toni Leah C. Yakes
So at the time of the creation of this piece, I was reading the text, a text by Alicia B. Wormsley and Suzanne Kite. And the text is called An Invitation for Black and Indigenous Artists to Dream. And essentially within that text, they were speaking to the power of dream technology in world building and future building within Black and Indigenous communities, and how rest and, like, caring for oneself and dreaming is like, a huge part of that process. So this piece kind of, like, emerged from that, where I was sort of beginning to go into a process of, like, trying to be quite aware of that state in between waking and sleeping, or between sleeping and waking. So the term I found out was, I think, like, it's called, like, a hypnagogic state. And this is a.
A place where often we see images or, like, abstract things, colors, etc. So with this, I, Yeah, I was just sort of immersed in that kind of practice and trying to communicate how I was experiencing that and, like, what was coming through. So the sounds were varied and, like, as you could tell as it was going on, like, it would just shift constantly, like, from one thing to the next. And I think that's interesting in dreams how there's no, like, sort of linear, linear, linear time structure. We just kind of get bounced around to different places. And yeah, also it was exploring the idea of, like, visiting. So the name itself, Wagy Natya Ronghage. It's. It's sort of about that when we're visiting a place, there's, like, a relationality between it.
Because we're visiting a place, the place is visiting us, we visit our kin, our kin are visiting us. And then I sort of believe as well that, you know, when we have, like, a memory and it's sort of of a place, and it gives us that, like, longing feeling that that place is also, like, thinking of us and wanting us to. To visit it.
[00:33:03 - 00:33:21] Claude Schryer
Okay. We sort of experienced that this morning on our sound walk. You did going into space and then feeling like we're invading the space. But whether we're welcome or not, we kind of tried to integrate and connect with that space. So it was kind of fun.
[00:33:23 - 00:33:23] Toni Leah C. Yakes
Beautiful. Then I walked and then the cemetery is right there. I understand that when they put the Road in, they dug the holes and everything. That's all our ancestors, the people that rescued. They called us here too.
Left on a cliffhanger. So that piece is called Otenaer. Sorry, one sec here. And speaking to archival materials. So the images within this piece that I just shared are all sourced from Alanis Abomsawin documentary, My Name is. And so this piece, I was thinking about land rights, the impact of what has been, you know, termed the Oka crisis, and how that sort of relates to my own personal growth and connection to, you know, what it is that I want to say with my art. So, yeah, it's a sort of visual experimentation and sound experimentation.
Also, the voice you heard was Cohen Diosta, and she was reflecting on the remains of ancestors that were being dug up as part of the golf course that was being built in Oka at the time. So speaking to sort of spirits of the land. And that that connection was a big part of what I was trying to communicate through this piece. Yes. And I'll go to my next xp. Oops. Oh, I think.
Yeah, there we go. So this is my piece, Wampum. And as I was saying earlier, I took. I used sound as like, these little tiny beads that I then wove, I guess, into the digital audio workstation Ableton. And so we have like, the two row wampum on here, and then here is the Hiawatha belt, which represents the six nations with this. My intention was not to create something that, you know, sounded pretty. It wasn't that.
That wasn't what I was going for. It was more about what, like, how can I divert sort of use of technology that. That is created to do a certain kind of thing in a certain kind of way that is also, you know, created. Was created in Europe for, like, techno, European techno, and has, like, this kind of particular function. But how can I sort of subvert that? And this was like, my response to that. And this is my last slide.
And this is sort of. This is a proto score of work that I'm doing.
So, yeah, I. So the sort of patterns are pottery, images or pottery patterns. Excuse me. I sourced those from the Six Nations Polytechnic Archive. And so within this piece, it's a score. Within it, I'm asking, yeah, where are you from? And then I'm saying, I am.
What nation are you? Excuse me. And I'm saying, I am Mohawk. And then I'm asking, what clan are you? And I'm Turtle clan. And then I layered it. You can see sort of the images of two people.
Those are my great grandparents. Yeah. So. And the images, the patterns and the pots on the side, I mean, these are dated anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 years old. And, yeah, the reason I'm asking, in the first question I'm asking, I said, where are you from? But that would be sort of like an English interpretation of that question. And I've sort of spoken to this before, but when you're asking where you're from, you're actually asking like, what clay are you made of?
Or what earth are you made of? So the answer is I and made from the. The land with Flint, because Mohawk is actually means people of the Flint Nation. So it's very much, you know, connected to a specific place. And then, of course, what clan are you? Turtle clan. So there's this huge connection between identity and land.
So this is kind of. Yeah. What I'm exploring with this. This kind of work. I think that's my time. So thank you for now.
[00:41:36 - 00:41:53] Claude Schryer
Thank you, Tony Leah. When we get into questions, I'm sure there will be elaborations that can come from the audience, and it's an ongoing conversation, but it's nice to both of you to see the work and to hear, in your case, the audio. Thank you so much. Adrian, do you want to take the tour?
[00:41:53 - 00:41:54] Adrian Avendaño
Yeah, sure.
[00:41:54 - 00:41:55] Claude Schryer
I want to make sure I just.
[00:41:55 - 00:41:56] Adrian Avendaño
Take a moment to.
[00:41:56 - 00:42:01] Claude Schryer
Sure, Adrian. So, Avendano, is that the right pronunciation?
[00:42:01 - 00:42:02] Adrian Avendaño
Yeah, that's right.
[00:42:02 - 00:42:07] Claude Schryer
There you go. So, Andrea, Adrian's doing a workshop tonight, which will be fun.
[00:42:09 - 00:53:20] Adrian Avendaño
Yeah. So I guess a bit of this presentation is just kind of giving some context of the experiences that I've had getting into sound and listening in general. It's not so much a presentation of work per se. It's actually more of like, trying to, like, even just for myself, to realize how much I have done in so many different areas and also to acknowledge all of the people that have facilitated opportunities for someone like myself to participate and learn. And so, yeah, my name is Adrian Enrique Castro Avendano, and I was born on the unceded territories of the Muslim Swahilish And Swell Tooth Nation. So Vancouver. And then I was raised for the first three years of my life, more or less in Vancouver or kind of literally the boundary between Vancouver and Burnaby.
And then my parents moved to Tissue, which is the stolen territory of the Kwantlen Katsi and semi amorphous nations. And so, yeah, on my mom's side, she's from Lima, Peru, and my dad is from Santiago de Chile, and they met in Vancouver. And so basically, like, I've always been really curious about what it means for myself as an individual to grow up, like, in diaspora and not really knowing how to connect to, like, the culture in which my parents have come from. And. And both of them being immigrants and even in some ways refugees in very different contexts. And I say that kind of like very generally because I think that is. It's really complicated, but generally.
On my dad's side, he was exiled from Chile during the dictatorship as he was a union organizer from the Catholic left, an organization on the Catholic left. And my mom left Peru in the late 80s, early 90s, just before the internal conflict in Peru due to a Maoist extremist group named the Shining Path, El Sandero Luminoso. And so then, yeah, and so a lot of my curiosity is to try to, like, understand that part of history and then how I myself can relate to that and also then contribute something positive to either to those places and also to the place where I have grown up. And so, yeah, I just wanted to share basically my journey through that, or at least parts of it. And this webpage is actually the very first thing I've ever done to get introduced to sound and even to even learn about soundscapes in general. And so this was the project. It's called Memoria Sonoras del Cuzco, so Sonic Memories of Cusco.
And it was a project that was, yeah, I guess sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Peru. And I think it was. Yeah, I forget, it was like a Casa Barlatome de las Casas, which is like a. I believe it's a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to promoting cultural patrimony and in different contexts. And then also there was, I think the UNESCO Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage was also part of this too. And this was really interesting because essentially this, like I mentioned, was the first time that I was ever exposed to thinking about sound not from. In a musical context.
So, yeah, like, primarily, I'm. I don't even know what I am, to be honest, in terms of, like, what I do. I've done so many different things in so many contexts.
But I play the drums. I'm a musician, percussionist. And so when I. When I graduated from forestry school, I wanted to take some time to. Yeah. To learn more about my family. So I went to Peru and went to Chile, and because I'm very curious about the art that I like, especially, like, experimental art coming from. Yeah. Latin American artists.
I was very lucky just to find on Facebook this person, Tomas Tejo, who. I totally recommend this person's work. He's shared this open call for participants to this project. And I happened to be in Peru at the time. Like, none of my family's from Cusco. Like, this is completely outside of my context. But I wrote to them on Facebook and I was like, hey, I'm in Peru.
My mom's Peruvian. I don't have any documentation that I'm Peruvian. But I'm really interested in this project, and I would like to apply, and would you consider my application? And they said yes. And so I did it. And then I was accepted. And so then I was like, okay, I'm going to Cusco now.
I'm going to be there for the next three months doing this project. And so this is really fascinating because, you know, I wish my parents. I should have invited my parents, actually. Anyway, so they'll listen to the podcast. But, yeah, basically, like, I wanted. I knew since high school that I wanted to do music. Like, people told me I play the drums, like, good and stuff.
I got my high school band award, whatever. And so then, like. But, you know, at the time, my parents, or mostly my mom, I guess, was like, you know, not that encouraging. And so I was. I. But I had an entrance scholarship to SFU, and I was doing, like, general kind of humanities and things. Little did I know.
Later, going through this process, I learned about, like, these are our teachers, Elder Olave and Omar Vargas, who are both musicians. Omar Vargas is a classical guitarist. He specialized in baroque Peruvian music. He's also an anthropologist. And Elder Olave, he's, I guess, contemporary classical composer, also anthropologist. And the very first class that they taught us was they introduced the reason why they were doing this project, and they introduced the work of the World Soundscape project that happened in Vancouver at sfu, where it went for three years prior to, like, you know, even. And I knew nothing out because I was so discouraged about not pursuing music or sound that I just totally went in this other direction.
And so that was a trip for me, you know, because it's like, okay, like, literally, I'm in this institution Like, I know nothing about it. And there's these people that are dedicating an incredible amount of their resources to actually take these ideas, interpret them for themselves, and to create something that is theirs. And I thought that was really powerful because. And I think it touches upon the. What we're talking about today, right? Because it's. It's a reframing, you know, it's not like, oh, yeah, like, let's do what these guys know.
It's like, let's do it. Let's take these ideas and make it our own.
And what do. Why and what do we need in order to do that? And this particular project, it's maybe outside of the realm of like. Of like the soundscape, so to speak, of the natural world. This is actually more of like a cultural, human culture kind of project where we were listening to the major traditional festivities of Cusco during this time, but we were also encouraged to listen to the soundscape. And we were. We did a sound map of the main plaza in Cusco.
And so for folks who don't know, generally, Cusco is, I guess, the old capital of Peru. It's like what Omar was saying. It was like, prior to the colonization by the Spanish, it was basically the capital of the Inca empire, which, you know, is significant in many ways, but essentially Cusco, from what he was sharing to us, it was dedicated purely for spiritual practice. So everyone who was living in Cusco prior to colonization, they were all servants to the deities. Basically, everyone was dedicated to praying in Cusco. And like, this is like a really sacred place. And so this main plaza was one of the first areas that was targeted by the Spanish to, you know, to claim.
And so one of the really amazing things that we did was to do a sound map. So we. There was like, you know, more than 20 of us, and we all, you know, were around in the plaza recording. And eventually he put it out somewhere on this website. But I did want to just show, like, a couple of the things that I recorded. And again, this is like, literally, like my first introduction to all of this. But I still think it's really interesting for me to look back onto it and see, like, kind of the progression in which things have taken.
And so this is the first recording here that I did. Well, of many. I mean, we, like, essentially, I have, I don't know, like, at least 30 gigabytes of recordings that we did. Like, this is just like, you know what. It's like 50 seconds of this. But this is really powerful because it's a group of Women rehearsing a hymn in Quechua. So Quechua is one of the indigenous languages and it was really cool because you can hear them very clearly reciting this hymn. And in the back, in the far back, you hear some music playing and it's actually the music being played by the band of the national police.
So yeah, let's just try to take a listen to this.
[00:54:05 - 01:00:13] Adrian Avendaño
So yeah, like there's so many like this project was basically trying to like create the first sound archive of Cusco. It's my other colleague's recording and so which is really powerful. And I think unfortunately with the political unrest currently happening in Peru, it's like this project hasn't continued. But I'm really happy that this is still on the Internet because for a moment it was not on the Internet. So it's like, yeah, open invitation. I mean I would love to connect with my teachers again and maybe do some sort of collaboration. I think this project's totally worthwhile to continue to do and I think there's a lot to be done.
I wanted to share another recording from this and this is kind of touches more about the ecological aspect of like, kind of like what this is centered around. And essentially this was from the, from this here. So this is, this is the, I guess the meeting place of a pilgrimage to pay respects to El Senor de Cuyoriti. This is like it's the entrance of the. Or the beginning of this pilgrimage is a two hour bus ride from, yeah, from like downtown to Cusco. And essentially it's a yearly celebration that all of the major nations is how they self describe. And most of these nations are either Quechua communities or Aymar communities.
And it's more or less like 20,000 to 30,000 people that attend. And there's a lot of like I guess contention around the origins around this cultural practice. But essentially it's one of the most intense kind of like forms of syncretism. So as in like taking, you know, the concepts of Catholicism but subverting it but also still paying rights to traditional ceremony. So, so what happens here is it's basically three days of nonstop music and dance and fireworks like in this mountain valley.
This is about 3,800 meters above sea level. And yeah, I would say like 90% of the people that are attending are like rural members of the community like in the surrounding nation. And so yeah, it's a really incredible place. Like I guess on the bit just off center there is that building is like a church. And so that's where the it's basically, there's a rock, a black rock, and this is where the image of El Senor de Kuririti, which is like an image of, I guess, Christ, Jesus Christ, but it's somehow like embedded in this rock. And there's like. Yeah, there's kind of like unclear, like, and there's different.
People believe different things around the origin, around this. But. But essentially this is like a really sacred gathering place. And because we're in the valley just beyond, like say on. So this is on the right hand side, is facing north. So if you go north, continuing north, there's another path. There's an additional pilgrimage to a glacier, and then there are rights that are done in the glacier.
And so the recording that I'll share here is the address from the leader of the Nacion Taguantensuyo. And he is describing. He's speaking in Spanish, but he's describing the reason why they are delayed getting back from the glacier. And the reason why they're delayed getting back from the glacier is because the ice has melted much more than what was expected. And so they had to walk much further to do their rights and then come back. But then even through all that, you can feel their really intense energy that they're there and completing their cultural practices, regardless of the fact that things are changing and that things are getting more challenging. But. So let's hear this. So, yeah, I think maybe I'll stop there just because I'm just being conscious of time. But, yeah. Thank you for your attention and looking forward to folks who will be here later for the workshop.
[01:00:13 - 01:00:15] Claude Schryer
Right on, Adrian. Thank you.
[01:00:15 - 01:00:16] Adrian Avendaño
Thank you.
[01:00:18 - 01:00:39] Claude Schryer
No, she can stay there. So, Hildegard Westerkamp, an old friend, 40 years, something like that. Who knows? Yeah. So floor is yours. You're in an interesting position. Sort of batting last, you know, so to speak. Baseball metaphor.
[01:00:39 - 01:16:11] Hildegard Westerkamp
Thank you, Claude. Old friend. You left out a whole. What was it, 30 years. There's a 30 gap in your bio today. That's the Canada Council. I just thought I'd mention that you were a very valuable addition to our country culturally, because of it. Thank you. Thank you, Julie and your team for organizing this. And yeah, it's a beautiful event and I'm very happy to be here.
Unfortunately, only for the panel, but at least I'm getting a whiff of what's going on here and it's very, very valuable work. Thank you so much. And thank you three. I am just so hopeful hearing you because it's from my perspective, I'm sometimes feeling quite helpless. Because I don't know what to do anymore other than being a grandmother and reflecting on my own work and on what we need to do. But to actually act culturally and artistically is more of a challenge for me now. And to hear this and to see your work is just so beautiful and the range of cultural backgrounds and contexts is just, it's a gift.
So I thought I'm just going to, from this stance, try to maybe just reflect a bit on how I got here. You know, it's a long story, but I'm just going to. What do we have, seven minutes? Okay. So, yeah, I am a grandmother now and I have been for 20 years. And it's quite amazing becoming a grandmother, it shifts things tremendously. And at this point where they are in their early 20s, you know, I have a lot of thoughts about what is it going to be like for them from now on and how do you find hope, how do you act, how do you keep your resilience and tenacity and how you have fun and, you know, what do you do at this point in life?
And, you know, it's fun to see because on some level, every generation has its own creativity. And it doesn't matter what goes on in the world, creativity will survive and it will get things going and it will create new energy. And, you know, here in Canada, we've had a bit of a wake up call lately. So, you know, I can feel that thing coming, that energy coming. I was born in 1946, a year after the end of the Second World War. And I did not realize the world I was born into. And just lately, from this perspective, I thought, oh my God, the 10 years of my, the first 10 years of my life were just.
I was in a country of utter chaos. Imagine, post Ukraine war, post Gaza, what happens. That's what it was. But of course, as a child, you don't know that and you play. And I grew up in rural Germany. I had forests around me, I had a lot of land around me. And that was probably my sanity in all that time.
Just being outdoors a lot and having cousins and friends, being in a village and just roaming around a lot. As I grew up, of course, the past and the confusion of what Germany had done became my consciousness. And by the time I emigrated to Canada, I was a very fearful, tense person, intimidated by the strength of my German intense culture, the authoritarian remnants that were there, the intensity of education there. So I was quite intimidated by everything. And when I, especially my music studies and when I came here, I felt so welcomed Here I felt my own tension falling off me over the years. It was almost like these skins falling off me. And I couldn't believe that people weren't judging us.
Young people, we were experimenting. We were having fun. There was also money around for us to do projects. And Vancouver was a very exciting place at that time for our age. And so we experimented. We did all sorts of things. And I began to discover that there was some creativity in me, which I didn't really know.
And when I then met (Murray) Schafer and started working with the World Soundscape project in 1973, I connected with Vancouver in a completely new way. By that time, I'd been in Vancouver for five years, and the invitation to listen to the soundscape and to open your ears to everything beyond music, which was what my focus had been, classical music for listening. Suddenly I was allowed to listen to the whole world. And Schafer was an inspiring character, and he also. He really recognized that obviously I was a listener, which I really didn't know. And so listening to Vancouver and allowing being allowed to research it, to learn everything about sound and acoustics and how we listen, how our ears are shaped, all that stuff, how our body resonates, all these things we learned was like another arrival in this country, getting to know Vancouver in a completely new way. And I actually began to feel at home in a way that I hadn't been before.
Again, this is all a bit. In hindsight, it wasn't necessarily that conscious, but it was just settling in that I felt even more so. And all this to say is, as a settler and an immigrant, it takes time to settle into a new place, to connect with a new place, and to understand it, to understand the culture. It takes a lifetime, actually. Like your parents, you know, you were born here, and that's a whole other story. So the sort of the blessing that came from learning about listening and legitimizing this approach to life and to the world really helped me to discover my creativity and then to learn the technology of recording. To be at a time where we could record everything, suddenly there was the technology.
It was portable enough. In fact, my very first tape recorder was so heavy. And the Nagra that we used at the World Soundscape Project was really heavy, but it was portable, and so we could go out there and record everything, and we were just. That's what we were doing. There was no question of asking permission to record things or go onto certain. And we just were able to do it, and we did it. Technology kind of gave us permission or gave me the inner empowerment that I could go anywhere with this microphone.
So that was an interesting way of thinking about it. At Co Op Radio, which started at that time, we were talking about giving voice to everyone who didn't have a voice in the media, to create a framework for those parts of the population, us and everybody else that didn't have a voice on the media, to have that opportunity. So that was the language and the atmosphere in the 70s. It was very freeing, and it was very political at the time. Vietnam War, all that kind of thing. And so we were busy recording, busy broadcasting. That was cooperative aspect, World Soundscape Project.
Those things were, for me, going together. I would say that listening was always the base from where I functioned, whether I taught, whether I did workshops, composed, organized conferences, you know, expanded this whole thing into an international community of listeners. The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, the editing the Soundscape Journal, the listening always brought us back to ground. For example, organizing a conference like this or a meeting like this, it was very easy to forget about listening and to organize and to talk about it endlessly, and then to remind ourselves that we actually had to do the listening. And so the fact that this sound walk happened, this one was not a given at the time. We had to think about that. Look, we're having a conference.
We are talking about acoustic ecology. We have to do listening in the conferences, right? Those were discussions that happened all the time because conferences had their own tradition. And so you talked a lot, but nobody listened. So I can only say I am so grateful for this whole development. And I just thought I'd have a sort of a last anecdote about this also. Again, as a settler, you know, I feel like I thought I knew a lot about indigenous culture.
I prided myself that we in the World Soundscape Project had included that in our projects. I learned a lot through Schaeffer and also my former husband, Norbert Ruebsaat. I learned a lot about Indigenous cultures. I read about it, but never had the chance, really, to be in personal contact that much. And so in 1985, there was a festival here in British Columbia that was for the first time that environmental organizers and indigenous people got together in this festival. And the festival was around in the Stein Valley, trying to fight the logging that was planned and building a road into this beautiful Stein Valley. The Stein river flows into the Fraser River.
And so they organized together a festival in the alpine meadows above. It's just amazing. We all hiked into there, and we were there for a good four days. I think there were 400 of us the next year, it was planned not to do it in the Alpine valley meadows because our footprint had become rather large up there. And the recovery from 400 people in the Alpine meadows, everybody realized, can't do that. The thing that really I learned there was. I heard a lot of speeches by indigenous elders, and there were these long pauses in these speeches.
And coming from a German culture, you know, silence and speeches is like. No, it's like in the media, you don't do that.
It's just not possible. Alarms go off. And I began to understand for the first time what that silence was. It was a very rich silence. It allowed you to be in that place and hear it, and it allowed the speaker, or it was part of that speaker's cultural context and upbringing. Correct me if I'm wrong, please, that that was the moment where the connection to the heart, the listening to the heart was given an opportunity. And then language could come out of that, that you listen to your heart and then you are able to speak from the heart.
And that made a huge impression on me. How to dare, in a context like that, to just be silent and to wait and to listen inward and not be flustered by the outside world. And to experience that in a natural environment like the Alpine meadows was remarkable because nature was giving us, me as the settler, the quiet and the beauty of that silence, it suddenly made sense. It would have been really different if it had been in a university conference, for example. There would have been a lot of nervousness, probably from many of us settlers for that long silence. And it taught me that silence is rich on many levels, and that slowing down like that is necessary for Europeans, for sure, but for other cultures, too. And so I think at this point in our lifetime, to dare, to be like that, to slow down, to allow our heart to speak, I think it's probably a revolutionary act in terms of what is happening right now. So thank you.
[01:16:18 - 01:16:53] Claude Schryer
Listening and speaking from the heart. We could go on a long time that. It's 12h23, and I'm looking at Julie here. How long should we take for questions? Another 10, 15 minutes, because you want to go too far behind the schedule here. But I also think surely people have questions. Yeah. All right. Rafael, do you want to do the mic thing? I have so many questions myself, but I'm going to allow you to speak and ask because you're. You're, you know, in a good place to ask those questions.
[01:16:59 - 01:17:27] Audience member 1(Samson)
Oh, hi. I'm Samson, and actually I'm from Hong Kong three years ago, so I'm Truly agree about coming to a new place and then the listening experience is totally different. I'm starting to learn again. But actually I want to ask a question about Andrew. Andrew, when you go to Is it Peru? Is it Peru, right? Yeah. Do. Do you know the Spanish? Yeah.
[01:17:27 - 01:17:33] Adrian Avendaño
Yeah. I'm lucky that way. My parents like English is my second language, so.
[01:17:33 - 01:18:41] Audience member 1
Ah, okay. Because I just. I just wondering about like, just for like from. From me to a new country and one, one thing, one thing that's so different or so difficult or like kind of like a boundary about the soundscape for me. Like maybe that's my bubble or this other bubble is about the language. I just wonder, I imagine if. If I'm the one who are. Who are going to like do the field recording. And of course I have this kind of experience like recording or listening to some places that the language, you are not familiar. I. I mean like, how. What's the approach? Like, or there's lack of kind of information. But maybe like, maybe you, you. You are more concentrate on the, on the texture of the. Of the voice. I just, I just, I just wonder like how. How this kind of situation we. We have to deal with. I think it's not really a question, but that's like, hey, I'm curious like how. How everyone like approach in this kind of situation.
[01:18:41 - 01:19:48] Adrian Avendaño
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I think I had an interesting interaction with someone on the way back home from this trip. It was in Mexico City. And yeah, I was just waiting and you know, and security check, long story short, is this fellow that I was just chatting to because he had this like, compass on his, like on his backpack or something. I was like, yo, that's cool. And he told me like, hey, like, or I'm going to Japan. I'm like, oh, you're going to Japan? Like, do you know how to speak Japanese? He's like, no, I don't know how to speak Japanese. And he told me that if you have an intention of communicating, people can understand each other. And so I think in the context of like, say maybe in one way that your question is like, yeah, I mean, if you're. If you show up to a place and you know, maybe it helps to learn some of the language that you're there. But ultimately there's ways people can communicate that maybe transcend language in a way. And I think in the context of like listening to sounds, I think that's kind of the most important thing. But I'm curious what everyone else has to say about that.
[01:19:56 - 01:22:34] Toni Leah C. Yakes
Well, I'm a language learner in terms of Kanienʼkehá꞉ka. So I think that process is recalibrating my brain in a lot of ways. And because of that, it's re. Calibrating my view of the world and how I exist in it and the life that exists in all things. Like with. Within, like. Like when we're describing something, it's not as sort of a passive thing, it's in constant movement. So, for example, in English, to say, like something, you know, the car is painted black, so we kind of like get an image of that or not. Some people don't see imagery, I just recently learned, but it's sort of like a solid state that this thing that we either imagine or don't is in, but within, we're saying the car is in the state of being black. So it opens up the possibility that that could change or it's not. So what's the word? Concrete, I suppose. Yeah. Not static. Yeah. Thank you. I don't know how that relates to your question, but, yeah, just to share as my language learning processes and yeah, there's definitely, like, tones and fluctuations that I'm learning that I'm not used to. The language sort of like bounces and flows in a very interesting way and there are pauses, like within the language, like we have symbols for. This is where you take a break and then continue. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I'll pass it on to Laurie.
[01:22:35 - 01:23:10] Lara Felsing
Yeah, thanks, Samson. That's a really interesting question because that's something I thought about before in terms of interspecies communication. And the most I could come up with is if one doesn't share a language with someone else or another being, that there's the intention behind the message, and sometimes it's the intention that comes through and that can come through in multiple ways. So just that language isn't something necessarily that can be caught up on or the only vehicle in which to communicate.
[01:23:14 - 01:23:23] Claude Schryer
Are there any other questions, comments, before we close it down? It's an ongoing conversation, by the way.
[01:23:27 - 01:25:07] Audience member 2
I just wanted to maybe add something onto that conversation that thematically links to what a lot of us are thinking about, which is listening for the purpose of connection. And it's that I was privileged to work for an author who was writing a book about interspecies communication and how we can decenter the human experience in order to further our shared goals of conservation outcomes. So kind of like from the ecological side of things, and if we want to use climate technology to leverage all of our good human work towards that end, we can even map or decode non human language. So something that scientists were working on was mapping in these cloud forms languages. So if we map bat language, for example, we can learn that they call each other by name and are very intentional in, in their literal communication with one another. And of course from that we can decenter our notion of human complexity being higher than anything else on earth. But also we can see that we have shared origins of language, which I think goes back to what the panel is just echoing, which is if the intention is communication and you're looking for similarities, you will find them. Because there's something shared about existence, I think fundamental to signaling to something else that you want to understand it or you are sharing space that is there if you just look. And this applies to honeybees and plants and whales and all the rest. So I think this sense that we're all pointing to it exists in multitudes, which is magical.
[01:25:08 - 01:25:24] Claude Schryer
Anybody want to comment on that? Let it stand as a comment. Anyone else questions? Comments before we have close this down? Yes, go ahead.
[01:25:29 - 01:26:30] Audience member 3 (Nazani)
Hi, I'm Nazani. I am thinking about like when Adrian said something about 30 gigabytes something files. I was thinking about this idea of like ever changing equipments and technology and the idea of like larger files every day and how it impacts the way we consume and we consume to create, but at the same time we are like consume all these resources and its impact on the way that we live and move around. So I'm just curious how you approach this and how you integrate this into your practice.
Any of you? I mean, yeah.
[01:26:38 - 01:28:35] Adrian Avendaño
I think for myself, yeah, it's something that I ask myself a lot for sure. Like, I guess the big thing that I think about as of late and probably people are thinking about is like, kind of like. Yeah, like proliferation of like AI applications. Right. And like the implications, implications that it has on the environment. One thing that I'm curious about, I don't know too much about it, but I know most folks use some sort of social media and people are promoting don't use AI, it's like killing the planet. But it's like we're using this other platform that's also using a similar type of technology and we're not really addressing that in some way too. But then it's also, it's also kind of this. It's almost like a paradox because in some sense it's like it's useful to be able to share opinions about these things and educate people and, and to share, you know, connection. But what are those Other consequences. Right. That we actually have to just work with, you know, I don't really know. I really don't know. I wish I knew. I wish, I guess, you know, in terms of the amount of material from that project, it's like, yeah, like I still have to like listen to it. I haven't listened to all of it, you know, but when do we have the time to do that? Right? You know, at least for myself, like. Yeah. So I'm curious what other folks, you know, work with that and like, and that's something that's really curious about working with, say like other types of material that maybe have different amounts of impact. Right. And you know, your work I think touches upon that like quite directly.
[01:28:35 - 01:28:36] Claude Schryer
Right.
[01:28:36 - 01:28:40] Raphael Zen
So if you like.
[01:28:44 - 01:29:55] Lara Felsing
Yeah, I've thought about that a lot in another aspect, because being a visual artist, there's this tendency to want to have work that is able to be exhibited or for sale and have this, this longevity. And my work doesn't have that at all. And to just come to peace with the fact that as my work, even in a matter of up to five years, will significantly age and fade and show that it's ready to be composted and its time here is done. At first it was really strange to come to, but then I thought, well, that's what the work is about. And maybe that's something with sound. Maybe after the recordings have served their purpose, maybe they're to be deleted, they're not to be saved. Maybe there's some sort of, you know, resolution. Sorry, don't delete all your hard work. Don't blame me when it's gone. Don't call me. I don't want to know if I have to do it. Hey, no, just kidding.
[01:30:03 - 01:31:43] Toni Leah C. Yakes
Yeah, I can say something quickly to that. I only started actually using image and video more recently. And I always feel really guilty about it because when I. I create something and then I'm like waiting for it to like export, I'm thinking about all of the, the energy that's going into that. And yeah, it's, it's on my mind. So I only try to create things that I really feel need to be shared. That's why I have very few sort of things, but also thinking about other forms of technology. So when I was speaking to dream technology or land based work as a technology, the land as a library as well. So the things that I create through technology are really only like, I feel a very small part of what I'm actually going through when I'm trying to express something So I try not to put too much emphasis on creating the best sort of technological thing I can. But that's just my personal sort of journey with the tech.
[01:31:48 - 01:33:08] Claude Schryer
I'll give Hilde an opportunity in a second. I just want to mention that there's a book that just came out called Burnout from Humans that Vanessa Andreotti and the Gesturing towards Decolonial Futures collective in Victoria, nearby here, published. That's really interesting because it's an indigenous view of AI, a different worldview, a different approach that's really, really interesting to look at. How, what do we. What kind of information and knowledge do we put into AI and how do we interact with it as a being as opposed to a product? So there's some really interesting work being done around the technology that we use. What I think we don't do enough is just measure the footprint. Is it worth it? Is this gathering worth it? I think it is because we've changed our view of each other. We've learned to listen better, we've done a lot of things, but that's part of it is that we're in a mad race towards even further capitalism in a world that needs to slow down and look at its impact and look at its footprint. And all of you speaking today, I think, talked about those things in very concrete ways because you gave examples of the work that you're doing, the actual work in the field. So I really appreciate that you want to speak. Adrian, Hilda, do you want to comment on this? So we'll do Hilde and Adrian, and then we'll have. We'll stop.
[01:33:09 - 01:34:08] Hildegard Westerkamp
Yeah. I think technology is just a tool, and I think we need to remind ourselves of that. And tools can be used in very creative ways and they can be destructive. And I even know what to think about AI at all these days. But I think that, again, there is the younger generation that will use it as a creative tool, and that's where the hope is. Right. And then there are those that will use it to exploit. And so again, listening comes in there. That's when the moment of listening has to happen. How am I using the technology and get rid of shame and guilt. But just say this is, you know, we're the spark of creativity and this is where it will help. I think that's the only way we can deal with that. And so it gets us back to daily life, right to the ground, to how do we walk this earth and how. Where do we walk in what way?
[01:34:11 - 01:35:04] Adrian Avendaño
Yeah, I guess my last comment would just be like, yeah, reflecting on what you just said in some way is. And I struggle with this too. It's like, yeah, like, how do we share the work that we do and also generate work that we want to share responsibly? But I try to remind myself that it's okay to be doing this because, like, the people that are, like, impacting the world on the greatest scale, like, in terms of, for example, like, and this is probably outdated and there's probably better data, but like, at least in terms of like, the emissions, carbon emissions, like, the US military is like one of the most, you know, intense polluters in the world. And so it's like, I'm not going to feel so bad about like, maybe uploading a track to the Internet if, like, you know, the US military complex is like, you know, creating genocides all over the world, you know. The powers that be are also doing, you know, and I think that's maybe another conversation for a different time.
[01:35:20 - 01:35:58] Claude Schryer
Indeed. I just want to thank you all for listening and being part of this. Julie Andreyev from Emily Carr here. Thank you for your work. Let's give her an applause because she's our champion here. Also, Barbara Adler from The Only Animal who is here. And the third partner of this project is the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology. And there's three of the board members here. Aaron Lui-Rosenboom, Leo Cabrera and Lauren Knight, of course, I'm getting there. Lauren and Simone D’Ambrosio. And, you know, so thanks.