World Listening Day 2021: The Unquiet Earth

The WFAE is delighted to endorse this year's World Listening Day activities facilitated by the World Listening Project.

Since its inception in 2010, thousands of people from six continents have participated in World Listening Day. July 18th is the birth date of renowned Canadian composer, music educator, and author, R. Murray Schafer. With the World Soundscape Project he developed the fundamental ideas and practices of acoustic ecology in the 1970s. These inform the current, burgeoning interest in our changing acoustic environment. Thus, World Listening Day honors Schafer’s contribution to understanding our world.

In 2020 we were forced to pause by an invisible virus. This brought countless consequences to the environment, and to the sonic environment in particular. New acoustic horizons emerged, signaling times of unquietness and global change, and requiring our listening awareness to evolve.
The theme for 2021 “The Unquiet Earth” is an invitation to reflect on and engage with the constant murmur of the Earth, sounds beyond the threshold of human hearing, to remind ourselves that we share this mysterious and awesome planet. Small, hidden, subterranean, aerial, underwater, infra and ultrasonic sounds, inaudible to the naked ear, can bring a new, potentially hopeful, perspective on the future of the planet and humanity. Listening as activism encourages us to question our attitudes as listeners as we aim to construct a more inclusive and empathetic new world. Join the unquiet revolution!
Listeners of all kinds are invited to host and participate in three activity types:

• 24-hour #WLD2021 streamed program hosted by the World Listening Projects. You are invited to submit audio and video works.
  
• Local events that are self-organized and led by groups or individuals for the public. Soundwalks, installations, workshops are examples. The WLP will help promote and celebrate your activities on their platforms.
  
• Personal celebrations. You are invited to share media and writing about private responses to the prompt of World Listening Day 2021: The Unquiet Earth.
  

REGISTER HERE

Deadline for 24-hour Steamed event: June 19, 2021.
Deadline for local and personal events and celebrations: July 17, 2021.

The World Listening Project also welcomes everyone to share news, ideas, and questions about participation on their Facebook Page and Facebook Group.

​Visit the World Listening Day 2021 page on the World Listening Project website for more information.