Listening, deeply (Ongoing)

Listening, deeply. is a long-term project and community space involving storytellers, musicians, academics, and story-listeners across the globe. At its center are the wandering Baul poets and musicians of urban New Delhi and rural West Bengal whose music-making practices communicate complex ideas, critiques, and problem-solving in ways that invite collaboration and reciprocity. The project starts out by archiving field recordings with Baul musicians in the rich and dense aural environments in which they live and work. These recordings – that Ritika has collected over many years of travel to her ancestral homes and the itinerant homes of these musicians – have allowed her to build a feelingful and meaningful relationship with voice, people, and place, by listening.

How do we build community through deep listening? How is sound a symbolic system? What wider world does listening (deeply) bring to the surface? How do we increase the capability of our bodies in how we listen? Over the next few months and years, this project will expand its space and repertoire to archive recordings of music from artists for whom deep listening is at the root of seeing, hearing, and creating.   

Supported by: MRAC Next Step Fund
All images by: Ritika Ganguly