Co-dreaming climates: public space for more-than-human socialities

Abstract

In the face of ongoing but unevenly distributed planetary catastrophe and, in the words of Patricia Reed, an urgent need to ‘make inhabitable worlds in common’, I argue for listening as a mode of urban spatial practice that offers the opportunity to remake our relations with more-than-human others. Recent work in sound studies has explored the potential of listening to create mutuality, dissent, and agency; here I am interested in how pedagogical tools can be designed to support these more radical modes of listening. Weaving essay writing with transcribed audio from a web tool that deploys field recordings and from staged conversations around food, I share experiments drawn from collaborations over the past two years. This is work developed as an architectural researcher, working with performance-makers, sonic artists, urban curators, natural scientists, and community and cultural organisations who are seeking to make public space for climate. Through this transdisciplinary praxis, listening is deployed to produce personal and social affects, space for political encounter, and attunement to ecological relations. In coming together to listen, we sought to create spaces for co-dreaming climates, where climate is understood as in crisis, as atmosphere, and as potentiality.

Keywords:

• planetarity
• listening
• more-than-human
• pedagogical tools
• critical spatial practice
• publics

Acknowledgements

With thanks to my collaborators, in Berlin: Alex De Little, Jon Orlek, Gilly Karjevsky, and Rosario Talevi, and in Sheffield: Tom Payne and Alex De Little.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data

The underlying research materials for this paper can be accessed at sonicactsofnoticing.org and ark-sheffield.org

Notes

1 Developed with Dr Tom Payne, Dr Alex De Little, Sheffield Theatres ‘Together in the City’, and cultural and community partners. It received ethics approval via Sheffield Hallam University under Converis references ER41929236 and ER40894183.

2 Jon Orlek and I are directors of Studio Polpo.

3 Parasitic Readers is a project developed by Rosario Talevi and Ethel Pohl Baraona. It is part of the Parasitic Reading Room, an ongoing nomad, spontaneous, and parasitic set of reading spaces that often take place along cultural venues and events, or any other spot in the city, with the intention of ‘parasite’ ideas, contents, and places, in order to provoke a contagion of knowledge. Initiated by radical publisher dpr-barcelona with the Open Raumlabor University.

4 ark sheffield was initiated as part of Sheffield Theatres Together in the City and grew from Payne’s previous work developed with National Theatre Wales. In Wales, Payne conducted interviews around the questions ‘what form does the flood take, how will we build our ark, what will we take with us, and what will we leave behind?’, and engaged in community gatherings and storytelling. This iteration was informed by a previous collaboration between Udall, Payne, and De Little, Amplifying Climate Dialogues, as part of the Festival of Social Sciences. It sought to bring unlikely pairs into open conversation, with the researchers out of the room, and allowing themes and concerns to emerge from people’s everyday lives.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Future Architecture Platform, 2020; Sheffield Hallam University; and Sheffield Theatres.

Notes on contributors

Julia Udall

Julia Udall is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Sheffield Hallam University and Director of architecture collective, Studio Polpo. She works with transdisciplinary collective around ideas of commoning and feminist spatial practices. Email: [email protected]; X: @JuliaUdall