Riya Raagini

Riya Raagini is a queer transdisciplinary artist and writer, whose practice flowers from intersections inhabited by sincere ecological-decolonial awareness and meditation, probing through subjective consciousness (ing). Theirs is a request to examine and host alternative forms of cognition, listening, radical restfulness, play-journalling, spirituality, and active resolve, with commitments to non-cooperation, collaborative & bioacoustic listening, and queer-feminist care. Riya was a recipient of the Phonurgia Nova Awards 2024 (Paysage Sonore).

When the subtle barriers between simply hearing and conscious listening dissolve, what emerges? How does it feel when alongside, other barriers dissolve too, like those between the subject & the object, the performer & the listener, the self & the other, and the human & the non-human? Through engaging in ‘deep listening’* sonic meditations, the workshop offers a sustained possibility to cultivate a heightened awareness of one’s sonic environment, both internal and external, while allowing the landscape to emerge as a fellow participant rather than simply a backdrop or setting. Via play-journaling, drawing, sound-walking, imagining, making, remembering, and paying attention to - sounds, we try to open doors to the vastness and the complexities of the sonic environment we inhabit and embody. The workshop requires no musical training, or experience with sounding, all it requires is the curiosity to begin listening impartially and being open to discovering new ways of inculcating compassion and understanding in our awareness and engagement.

*(‘Deep listening’, as developed by Pauline Oliveros, explores the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the conscious nature of listening, without controlling that which is heard)