by Cynthia Tarlao
Our team was invited to participate in a workshop on sound ecology and active listening at the Lucien-Pagé secondary school in Villeray in February, as part of a project lead by the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) Youth Program and Trames Audio.
The workshop encouraged the young students, aged 14 to 16, to take the time to listen to the sounds around them in their daily lives, and to think about the positive aspects that sound can bring to their usual contexts.
Our team’s participation consisted of a collaborative reflection on the consequences of sound, positive and negative, on their sound environment, but also on themselves and the people around them. This presentation in the classroom was followed by a soundwalk exploring the nearby street and Jarry park lead by Cynthia Tarlao and Dr. Catherine Guastavino, head of the Sounds in the City project, during which the students were encouraged to actively listen to the sounds they made and to the sounds they might not usually pay attention to, and to experiment with textures and objects that could make sounds they might not have thought of in their daily lives.
The final outcome will be presented as a documentary at the next Montreal International Documentary Festival, which will be held in November 2019. It will focus on the students’ sound perceptions in the form of personal texts and sound compositions.
