open call: 'the walls have ears'
Sonic Acts and De Ateliers/Woonhuis present The Walls Have Ears – a fully funded sound studies writing residency taking place in Amsterdam in February 2026. Open to one established artist, researcher, or scholar working in the field of sound studies, the residency offers time, space, and critical support to develop a focused writing project.
·
Before Pauline Oliveros’ seminal Sonic Meditations (1974) taught us how to listen deeply, there was Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit (1965). This small, magical publication, filled with drawings and poetic instructions, invites us to engage with sound in unexpected ways. Ono tells us to scream against a wall, capture the sound of an ageing stone, record falling snow, or to walk in another’s footsteps without making a sound. Many of these tasks suggest a beautiful, whimsical consideration of sound as a medium that allows us to know the world more deeply. Objects have unique resonances, which we should attune to closely and attentively – through listening or by using recording devices that, in turn, possess an alchemical ability to capture and preserve memories.
·
Under the title The Walls Have Ears, this residency invites a dialogue on how we engage with the practice of close listening. Inspired by Yoko Ono’s conceptual approach to remixing and reimagining meaning, can we think about the acts of listening, hearing, and communicating from the perspective of the other – in this case, the wall? If listening is an act of connection, it should become a way of attuning to one another – of hearing voices unheard and unlistened to. At its core, listening is an act of empathy – an offering of attention and care that acknowledges histories, emotions, and the lingering echoes of violence and silencing. We live in a noisy and disorienting moment: some are permitted to talk endlessly, while others are drowned out. This residency wishes to hear otherwise – to consider listening as a disruptive force in the status quo; an act of slowing down, tuning in, and giving space.