Presentation short abstract

In the artistic research project Slibfluisteraars (silt whisperers), artistic researchers engage in sensory, performative, and participative “attempts” of learning to listen to silt. What can intimate attempts at dialogues reveal about the politics and ethics of listening to this material?

Presentation long abstract

In the artistic research project Slibfluisteraars (silt whisperers), artistic researchers engage in sensory, performative, and participative “attempts” (Ex 2024) of learning to listen to silt. The living context for this is the Groninger coast in the Netherlands, where silt is both contested and coveted.

From an anthropocentric, humanistic perspective, silt would not only be considered inaudible – it would not even have anything to say at all. Silt thus tends to be both silenced and backgrounded (Meijer 2025). Yet silt is deeply entangled with ecological, economic, and political dynamics: listening to the material invites us to recognise how it participates in, and responds to, tidal rhythms, dredging practices, industrial histories, and shifting coastal futures in the face of climate change. Yet even opening up to listen does not guarantee understanding. How to listen to something so amorphous and multiplicitous as silt?

Tracing several listening attempts made within Slibfluisteraars, we will explore and experience how listening as an artistic method can open up alternative ways of connecting with silt, while simultaneously attending to gaps and silences that we argue are also often part of multispecies conversation. In doing so, this contribution, which combines artistic and academic approaches, aims to explore collectively what intimate attempts of interpretation and responsiveness can reveal about the politics and ethics of listening to and including non-human voices.