Sound art at the heart of The Listening Biennial

This year’s The Listening Biennial, Singapore Edition arrives as part of the Singapore Night Festival, transforming the city into a stage for an international sound art exhibition. Titled On Third Listening, the Biennial explores Third Listening as a practice of deep empathy and interconnection with human and non-human life. Inspired by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s philosophy of interbeing, the project challenges visitors to hear beyond separateness and instead engage with sound as a pathway to repair, resistance, and reimagined coexistence.

A sound art exhibition of interconnection

Rather than treating listening as a passive act, the Biennial frames it as a mode of attention that can reshape how we perceive each other and our environment. Across venues in Singapore, works by artists, musicians, researchers, and activists invite audiences into layered encounters with histories, languages, and overlooked stories. These are not simply sonic experiments but acts of care and politics—sound as memory, sound as ecology, sound as dialogue.

Sound art installations at the Biennial

One of the most anticipated contributions is by Chilean-Mexican-Austrian artist Amanda Piña, whose project To Listen with the Hands proposes listening as a bodily practice. Presented as a guided sound art installation, the work encourages participants to re-examine the senses through touch, sound, and presence. Piña describes it as an exercise in decolonizing the senses, aiming to undo modern frameworks that have contributed to ecological and social crises. 

Pakistani-British artist Lujáne Vaqar Pagganwala presents Anatomy of a Breathing Exercise, a layered sonic environment that intertwines harmonica tones with field recordings from rooftops in London and Karachi. The installation is conceived as both soundscape and meditation, creating spaces where inner psychology and external landscapes blur. As listeners move through its shifting layers—hums, lullabies, and breath—they are subtly guided to synchronize their own breathing with the work, turning listening into a performative, embodied act.

A global network of listening

Since its founding in 2021, The Listening Biennial has grown into a global platform for sound art, partnering with institutions from Buenos Aires to Taipei. The Singapore edition continues this transnational spirit, emphasizing listening as a radical tool for empathy and community.

In an age of polarization and noise, the Biennial suggests that listening—attentive, embodied, and open—can be a form of social transformation. With its constellation of sound art installations, performances, and workshops, it invites the public not only to hear but to attune, to remember, and to imagine together. Don’t miss this unique experience before it ends on October 26th, 2025.