COASTAL CONSERVATORY
LISTENING FOR
COASTAL FUTURES
The Coastal Conservatory connects arts, humanities, and public engagement with sciences of coastal change. Since 2017 we have been working with scientists at the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR), an NSF-supported Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, to create integrative understanding of the dynamics reshaping coasts.
The Conservatory began from a humanities lab grant funded by the Mellon Foundation through the University of Virginia, won subsequent funding from the Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation (CGI2) and the Environmental Institute at UVA, and is now a regular component of the VCR.
VISION
WHY CALL OUR PROJECT A CONSERVATORY?
As a member of the global Humanities for the Environment network of observatories, we pivot from the ocular metaphor of an observatory to the aural metaphor of conservatory in order to emphasize our focus on listening. Sharing a semantic root with “conservation,” a conservatory usually means a school of music or a greenhouse. We draw on all three meanings: a school of music that composes with the living world, a school of science that connects conservation with culture, and a school of living that cultivates cultural capacities to respond to changing lifeworlds.
Listen to an interview with Conservatory directors in this NPR profile.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LISTEN FOR COASTAL FUTURES?
Listening is a form of inquiry that can immerse hearers in a living environment and connect people across boundaries. The Conservatory organizes collaborative inquiry around listening in three ways:
1. to environmental sound through field recordings and designed listening stations
2. to the sciences of coastal change, by sonifying data, composing with it, and creating public events in which audiences can interact with research
3. to one another, across disciplines and cultures, as we seek to understand coastal futures from multiple ways of knowing
Read "Listening as a Model for Integrating Arts & Humanities into Environmental Change Research," by Willis Jenkins in Environmental Humanities.