Around: Sound Art Festival 2014

cover of Around Sound Art Festival 2014

“In many ways we listen. Around sound art festival continues with the gesture of reaching out to multiple pockets of the city, left open or closed by choice or by exigency. The urban is our reality; its elasticity – in its material and imaginary form – our survival. We are not sure for how much longer we can live the city; there is no other way to find out but to keep seeking what is dearest to us and to understand and embrace what is dearest to others.

Around 2014, the fourth edition of the festival, begins in Tango-Amino, Japan, with an art camp. It is an extension and variation of the retreat camp we have been organizing. Why Tango? First and foremost, it is the hometown of Akio Suzuki who had walked with us since the founding of the festival in 2009. We have learnt a lot from not only his art, but also the way he relates with others and bridges talents, elements, moments, and more. Tango has also been the home of Festivity on the Ancient Hill, organized by Akio and his friends in the 1990s. It is our honor to have the chance to work in its shadow, its whistles. Co-curators for the camp Alice Wong and Wong Chun-hoi are committed to building a neighborhood for artists interested in listening together in a structure that fosters artistic and cultural exchange, and with the principle of encouraging independent art making that cuts across art forms, styles, or cultures. We believe that a retreat from the whirl of everyday routine helps us refresh our capacity for listening with our whole body – to places, to each other, and to ourselves.

The same principles underlie Voices/Landscapes (for the eye and ear), to take place in Hong Kong shortly afterwards. It is our honor that Carlo Fossati brings his curation to Hong Kong for the first time. His meticulous attention to artistic processes and his unassuming manner of writing while upholding a stringent demand for precision has been a lesson for us.”

– Yeung Yang, Founding Member and Executive Director, soundpocket