Que Som? Que Música? Só o Mundo!

There are sounds that accompany us every day without us really hearing them. The whisper of the wind in the trees. The irregular rhythm of traffic. Water flowing through the city. Conversations in a café. The silence of an abandoned factory. The echo of a square at dusk. We live immersed in a constant symphony that we rarely recognize as music.

What sound? What music? Quite simply, the world! It stems from a desire to slow down and make time to listen. Each artist residency begins with a meandering walk through the surrounding area, during which walking becomes a method of observation and the recorder replaces the gaze. Little by little, the recordings transform into memory, rhythm, poetic material, and composition.

I am not seeking to represent a place or to paint an accurate portrait of it. What I am seeking is to listen to what it conveys to us when we give it time to exist, allowing sound to reveal what sight so often overlooks or ignores.

Poetry emerges as the thread that ties the entire experience together. It neither illustrates the landscape nor describes the journey; it accompanies it, breathes it, and carries with it the time lived in each encounter. The resulting performance aims to do the same, transforming the territory into artistic material without stripping it of its identity, so that each creation remains inseparable from the place that gave it birth.

In the end, it is no longer the territory that serves as the backdrop for the work. It is the work itself that becomes a way of returning to the territory.

The project takes shape through prolonged listening to the territory. For several days, I walk, letting the place itself determine the pace, the stops, and the encounters. Sounds emerge naturally—in the streets, in nature, in factories, in conversations, in everyday gestures—and each recording becomes part of a living archive, built from what the territory offers and the way we choose to listen to it.

It is from this act of listening that the writing emerges. The texts do not seek to respond to what a place appears to be, but rather to draw closer to what it communicates when given time, silence, and presence. Later, the recordings are edited and integrated into the performance’s soundscape.

Whenever the creative process allows, the project opens itself up to the community through workshops on writing, oral expression, and listening, ensuring that the stories, voices, and experiences of those who live in the area also find a place in the work. Thus, each residency becomes a process of encounter, and each performance a unique creation, inseparable from the place that gave rise to it.