In celebration of the final day of Spring Workshop and the launch of our last publication Industrial Forest by artists/architects ESKYIU, Samson Young and his collaborators presented Muted Situation #2: Muted Lion Dance at Spring.

Muted Situation #2: Muted Lion Dance is part of a series by artist and composer Samson Young entitled Muted Situations (2014—). These works are proposals for sonic situations to be heard anew, achieved through a re-prioritisation of different sound layers. Certain layers—in most cases the sonic foreground of such situations—are consciously muted or suppressed, and as a result, the less-commonly-noticed layers are revealed. Instructions on how to stage these situations range from specific directives, to more open approaches that require negotiation with the participants.

Mute is not silence. Muting is not the same as doing nothing. Rather, the act of muting is an intensely focused re-imagination and re-construction of the auditory. It involves the conscious suppression of dominant voices, as a way to uncover the unheard and the marginalised, or to make apparent certain assumptions about hearing and sounding.

Watch glimpses of the performance here: https://vimeo.com/267115809