How can sounds converge to form a common language? In this listening session, Golnoosh Heshmati, one of Khamoosh’s members, invites the participants to use collective listening as a tool for imagining the overlaps and commonalities of possible future communities. Inspired by the context of this year’s Rewire festival, this session explores the sounds of passing, movement, and transmission in moments where sound becomes a form of shared knowledge, transcending the limitations of language and territory. The sounds selected for this event encompass the physical movements in the southern waters of Iran to the transformation of the meaning of language in various localities.

Khamoosh is a participatory transdisciplinary research community that mediates conservation and restoration by exploring the sonic heritage of Iran through recorded sounds of everyday life; sounds less heard or even silenced. This process-based project aims to build an interactive archive of sounds and to exchange, resurrect, and decolonize these sounds using artistic methods. Our methodology is guided by an ongoing process of learning by doing, community-based participation, collective artistic practice, and research as a network.

Golnoosh Heshmati is a curator and artist based in Rotterdam. She is the co-founder of Rabt space, a studio focusing on artistic research and sound studies based in Tehran. She mainly works with archives and sound as modes for collective practices. Her recent ongoing project revolves around a residential dwelling in Tehran, where she and her family have lived for decades. She is a member of Khamoosh, an artistic research community dedicated to preserving and archiving the sonic heritage of Iran. Heshmati has also curated exhibitions both individually and as part of GAPS collective in Italy, Spain, the UK, and Iran.

In 2023 Khamoosh was part of the online artist-in-residency program of Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, a radio space for curatorial and artistic practices. Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee is based in Amsterdam, while frequently collaborating with artists and partner organisations remotely. Co-founder Radna Rumping will be present for a short introduction.