In “L’art de l’écoute” (The Art of Listening), the artist and researcher Sandra Volny dives deep into the upheavals caused by climate change, offering a profound and perceptive exploration of “surviving aural spaces.” In a series of collaborative projects, she has probed the persistence of sonic residues in our changing environment. From the background noise of the Pacific Ocean from which Chilean fishers draw navigation guidance, to the recorded sounds of the Dead Sea that reveal its own disappearance, each of her works provides unique insight into the fragility and resilience of the world of sound. Aural traces of grains of sand in the New Mexico desert and vibrations of Antarctic ice are transformed into “sound fossils,” testifying to contemporary environmental challenges.
In these explorations the traces and paths of sound are not turned solely toward the past; they evoke a rebirth, a plea for us to remember and to recompose forgotten stories. In “L’art de l’écoute,” Volny invites us to listen to a possible future, a horizon that integrates these past narratives as a means of survival in a changing world.
Biography
Sandra Volny is an artist and researcher who studies the perception of sound spaces. Her approach is deployed in installations, videos, instruments, group situations, and performative paths that combine listening, scientific investigation, and fieldwork. She holds a doctorate in arts and sciences from Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne; the subject of her dissertation was “surviving aural spaces,” in which she explored the persistence of sound in spaces through their material, sensory, and social constellations. Her research has been the subject of solo and group exhibitions at the Musée d’art de Joliette, Darling Foundry, Clark Centre, FOFA Gallery, Centre d’exposition de l’Université de Montréal, Galerie Michel Journiac (Paris), Ionion Center (Cephalonia) and Raumlabor-267 (Braunschweig). Her works are in national and private collections, including those of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Hydro-Québec, and Majudia.