Sonic Geographies of Hope draws inspiration from the methodology and concept Geographies of Hope in Praxis as defined by A. Hazelwood (2023): “spatiotemporal processes where place-based peoples (together with their allies) are recon-stituting law, territories, and more hopeful ways of knowing, doing, and being in the world” (A. Hazelwood et al., 2023, p. 1418). Sonic Geographies of Hope takes a sonic and musical approach to this search. I recognize the limitations: a Song performed at a concert does not recon-stitue the law, or a territory, but it can reconstitute emotional geographies. For this, I suggest that the Song must be grounded in an emotional place of pain and hope of our damaged planet. As presented by A Hazelwood (2023) “Place is a terrain underfoot, an origin point for enunciating hope” (A Hazelwood et al., 2023, p. 1424). This is why I understand Sonic Geographies of Hope as spatio-emotional, temporal processes where a specific Song composer acts as a vessel to write a Song inspired in a collective emotion that rises from a specific environmental issue, in a damaged planet. The Song affects and sets into motion emotional geographies of the artist and audience. It creates a pedagogical space that affects the collective emotional geography of the listeners, and as a consequence, generates collective resonance. This resonance is able to nurture curiosity and imagination for transformation in a specific (emotional and/or physical) place for more hopeful ways of knowing, doing and being. Here I offer an animation that explains the methodology for Sonic Geographies of Hope to take place:
I will proceed to present the 4 main dimensions of Sonic Geographies of Hope: I) sonic map, II) a portal to grief, III) a pedagogical space, and IV) collective resonance.
I) A Sonic Map
"There was once a butterfly
We saw break
The clouds turning black and grey
Pouring down rain
Left alone in solitude,
The sea was brave
The sorrow that it held
In the clashing waves."
(Valenzuela and Viksten, 2025)
Imagine a sonic cartography, where the Song composer is a sonic cartographer. Its duty it's to map grief and collective emotional geographies that inhabit a damaged planet. This requires first a sonic cartographer who is willing to connect and unpack the source of their pain. That pain might be the loss of a particular ecosystem, coral bleaching, a dried up river or the relationship to a specific place, person or more-than human being. Both in the case of Hara and myself, we write Songs inspired by the loss of gardens and the stories of specific flowers. In the case of the Song Al Jardin, I connected to the loss of my grandma's garden. As Hara confirms: “we have to first understand and then acknowledge that there is a broken relationship” (R. Larasati, personal communication, May 4, 2025). As Song composers, or sonic cartographers, who want to compose Sonic Geographies of Hope, we need to create a sonic map about a specific issue, grounded in our damaged planet.
II) A portal to grief
“What we most need to do, is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.”
Thich Nhat Hanh (as cited in Macy and Johnstone, 2022, p.72)
To hear the sound of grief, Song composers and poets need to connect with their heart. As Melisa Yıldırım emphasizes: “If I have a more connection with my heart, with my neurons, if I hear them and observe them more, maybe I can improve my connection with nature and the world itself” (M. Yıldırım, personal communication, May 6, 2025). Together with Melisa, there is a whole wave of thinkers and advocates for the importance of heartspace and emotion as a source of knowledge. As Escobar (2018) writes “what is thus needed is a politics for another civilization that respects, and builds on, the interconnectedness of all life, based on a spiritual-ity of the Earth, and that nourishes community because it acknowledges that love and emotion are important elements of knowledge and of all of life” (Escobar, 2018, p.12). In these contexts, Songs are a home to both grief and hope, which as Joanna Macy (2018) states “our pain and our love for the world are inseparable: Two sides of the same coin” (Macy, 2018, para. 4).This is why, as important as mobilizing for changing the material and ecological realities of a particular community and place, it is crucial to find ways to embrace our grief and transform our emotional geographies for hope and collective resonance to emerge. Hara states: “I think the raising of consciousness has to be emotional as well. I think only when the art has touched the person or society or the listener, only then we can start thinking about what to do to restore their relationship” (R. Larasati personal communication, May 4, 2025).
III) A pedagogical space
As suggested in the visual representation of Sonic Geographies of Hope, at the center of a Song there is a pedagogical space. Inspired by Paulo Freire, Hara practices this already when organizing her concerts:
“Freire talks about liberation through raising your consciousness for liberation. I always think about, you know, these spaces (concerts) can be critical spaces to raise political consciousness and to really think about what we want, like, what kind of liberation we want. (...) I use all the spaces where I perform as a pedagogical space as well or educational space because, you know, some of my songs, they come from a very kind of, you know, either tragic history, like the political prisoner songs or like grief or ecological grief (...) Sometimes, especially when you're performing in countries like Indonesia, where we are systematically kind of, created to be ignorant through the formal education system. (...)We've been trained to not ask and just accept, you know, life” (R. Larasati, personal communication, May 4, 2025).
Rara describes that she takes time to talk in between Songs to provide context and co-create a pedagogical space through storytelling. She also thinks creatively and carefully how to curate her concerts. Many of them take place in community gardens and nature. There she introduces her audience to specific plants, their names and healing properties. The audience is active and, sometimes, as part of the concert, they also perform their own Songs and poems. She even went as far as having a bike trip concert together with her audience when touring her album Kenduri (2022).
This concert-pedagogical space explores the potential for people coming together and building community through music. A concert in a damaged planet then becomes a pedagogical space where collective grief and emotional geographies are mapped, opening a possibility for hope and restoration to emerge. This is what I aimed to create at my concert Geographies of Hope, by sharing the meaning of each Song through storytelling, as well as by giving away meadow and sunflower seeds in the program, and asking the audience "what does hope mean to you?" through an art installation. See Appendix A.
IV) A collective resonance that sparks curiosity and imagination.
"So when the ocean
knocks the windows in my soul
enters gently and transforms
the geography of my hope.
I will know that I can call it home
when the ocean comes
I will keep an open door"
(Valenzuela, 2025)
When Song performance opens a pedagogical space for Sonic Geographies of Hope to emerge, there is the potential for everyone involved to experience collective resonance. Melisa describes it as follows:
“Through my words, through my poem, through my sounds and philosophy I can bring some awareness, ideas, questions, answers to my close environment. (...) I believe that change can start slowly from a small circle. And it can resonate. It can vibrate to other circles. So my point goes from small to big. (...) So if I change myself, if I express myself, I can give courage to my colleagues. And my colleagues can create their own circle. And this circle can be bigger” (M. Yıldırım, personal communication, May 6, 2025).
Song can provide a collective space for resonance that sets curiosity and imagination into movement. Curiosity, as suggested by Anna Tsing et al. (2017) in Arts of living on a damaged planet: Ghosts and monsters of the Anthropocene represent a key element for our survival: “to survive, we need to relearn multiple forms of curiosity. Curiosity is an attunement to multispecies entanglement, complexity, and the shim- mer all around us” (Anna Tsing et al., 2017, p11). Curiosity gives wings to our imagination to explore how to participate in the restoration of the world, which in turn, invites possible worlds to come. And what is more beautiful, than singing and dancing at the same time, engaging our full bodies, in collective resonance to embrace our pain, anger, joy and love for this Earth.