The workshop leaders were focusing on different aspects, which are exemplified as follows:
 

             A) Finding creative sonic responses to what has been perceived:
 

Bhagwati: In my workshop, participants were asked to embrace their own agency by conscious acts of attentive, guided listening to one another – and to find creative sonic responses to what they perceived. In doing so, they transitioned from receptive listening to creative listening – thus gaining in agency and social interconnection. 

Blume: I’m not sure if I could talk about a social impact through a workshop of a few hours, even if listening can be the beginning of a change. Listening to the other (human or non-human) means to take him/her/it in consideration, to give a place to exist… listening can probably be part of the change. 

B) Curiosity

Sakina: The fact that I don't have an academic role in the field worried me a bit. However, I saw clearly that the practical transfer of knowledge should not be underestimated. It was very valuable that the participants had a high level of interest and focused on it with curiosity. Our workshop was interactive, very friendly and maintained personal communication at eye level.

Kislal: In the art sector, we are at the point of changing the perspectives, at the phase of unlearning what we had until now thought to be the “norms”, the usual daily life. This new situation should be observed, and accompanied with open discussions till we (as usual) find the new “normal” of our job. There is wholesale change in society and I believe that Art can manage this transition phase, this time of the unlearning with a creativity, and respect. And before we learn more, we can only ask the right questions. 

   C) Sharpening critical thinking – rethinking of one owns attachments

Maria Do Mar: The workshop had the concrete, direct aim of introducing the students to postcolonial approaches and their references to art and culture. In addition, I wanted to sharpen their critical thinking so that, for example, they would be empowered to rethink their own complicated attachments to a Eurocentric canon. 

   D) Agency, self-determination

Erdödi: My method of collaborative learning through the active involvement of the participants in the proposed exercises also fosters agency. At the same time, the exercises themselves revolve around how we think about agency and also how we conceptualize collaborations in a way that affords space for the agency of the different collaborators, and does not prefigure what their agency should be in a given process, but remains open to their agency unfolding in the dialogic process of getting to know one another and understanding in what way (with what content, in what form, with what mode of participation) they would like to contribute to the project. 

This also connects to the social impact of such a methodology of collaboration, as it enables the people involved in the project be self-determined, often challenging the normative roles and status otherwise attributed to them by society and their local community. Sharing such a working method with the workshop participants enables them to devise collaborations in a more context-responsive and empowering way, attending to different practices of listening (see LITTLE BOOK ON LEARNING) that are conducive to allowing different bodies/forms of knowledge to be articulated.