Connecting Commutes is an artistic project that regards listening as a sensory practice that promotes reflection and experimentation. It will be part of the Portuguese Capital of Culture Braga25 programme.
The constant changes in the territory, imposed by urban growth, force us to look for efficient, ecologically responsible mobility systems that help create alternatives to individual transport and give us back the ‘right to the city’. Public transport is a public space with its own characteristics, it is part of the life of cities and its population, and is therefore also a way of participating in collective life. Buses, in particular, are also places where we can meet ‘the other’, where we can let ourselves be lulled into a space-time interstice favourable to introspection and imagination.
The project is based on the concepts of mobility, territory, heritage, landscape, public space and community, opening up avenues of creation in the field of sound and also in the thinking associated with this theme. We regard sound as an essential language and a source of information about the world around us, but also as a crucial tool for stimulating imagination and artistic expression.
Our main partners are the Audire (CECS) research group and TUB – Empresa de Transportes Urbanos de Braga. Between March and September 2025, sound works will be presented on the buses of this network and will also be made available online. Associated with the sound content, there will also be a publication of written essays on the theme of the project and the sound content itself.
We invite researchers and the academic community in general to submit written essays and sound pieces, through a call for papers open until January 31, 2025. Sound pieces must be between 3 and 15 minutes long, in any of the following genres: radio art, soundscape, documentary, installation, audio routes and musical composition. Written essays should have a maximum of 5000 characters. Both formats – sound piece and written essay – must be original works, either unpublished or already published.
Information on submission guidelines here
For any questions and to send submissions, please use the e-mail prodtcom25@gmail.com.
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