‘Prairie Listening’

Grinnell College is sponsoring a workshop featuring listening meditations of the prairie and a lecture on soundscape studies at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11, in Faulconer Gallery. The event is free and open to the public.

The workshop, titled “Prairie Listening and the Sustainable Soundscape,” will feature audio recordings gathered last summer at the College’s Conard Environmental Research Area. After the lecture and meditations, the workshop will conclude with a discussion that explores how the sounds of our environment shape our experience of community and place, and how we each play a role in composing the soundscape.

After examining traditional approaches to taming noise — isolation, masking, and abatement — workshop attendees will consider creativity and purposeful listening as a first step towards building a sustainable soundscape that invites a shared appreciation of place.

The workshop will be conducted by Abby Aresty, a lecturer in music and a sound artist known for creating powerful sonic explorations from mundane objects. One of her recent works, “Paths II: The Music of Trees,” was hailed as “sometimes eerie, sometimes transportingly lovely” by the Seattle Times.

Grinnell welcomes and encourages the participation of people with disabilities. Faulconer Gallery is fully accessible, with accessible parking available behind the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts in the cul-de-sac off Sixth Avenue. Accommodation requests may be made to Conference Operations.