Generous Listening Symposium

Meetings on Architecture

Generous Listening Symposium, organized as part of the ‘Meetings on Architecture’ program of La Biennale di Venezia, in collaboration with Vuslat Foundation, delved into the notion of listening generously as a possible answer to the question posed by the Biennale: ‘How Will We Live Together?

The Generous Listening Symposium took place as a continuation of the debut project of Vuslat Foundation; ‘The Listener’, a monumental installation by Giuseppe Penone at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, which represents a symbolic prompt of the potential generous listener within each of us.

The object of the Symposium was to frame generous listening within the context of art and architecture and explore how these disciplines can be vital vehicles for listening, how listening is an imperative and integral component for each practice, and what kind of spatial arrangements are required for listening.

Speakers of the symposium included with a keynote by artist Giuseppe Penone, and talks with Chus Martinez, art historian, writer and curator-at-large at Vuslat Foundation; Vuslat Doğan Sabancı, Founder of Vuslat Foundation; Francesco Bergamo, an architect working sound ecology and contemporary sound practices; Hashim Sarkis, curator of Biennale Architettura 2021; İnci Eviner, contemporary artist; Kenann McKenzie, director of the Generous Listening and Dialogue (GLAD) Center at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life; and Caroline Jones, Professor in the History, Theory, and Criticism section, Department of Architecture at MIT.

What is generous listening and why is it necessary? As the International Architecture Exhibition challenges artists and designers to imagine spaces in which we can live together generously, Vuslat Foundation has chosen this very occasion to amplify and elaborate on its mission of elevating the act of listening as an indispensable and often neglected action that carries the power to cultivate compassion and connection while instigating positive change.