Palestinian musician and sound artist, Dirar Kalash, has emerged as one of the most vital contemporary voices working across sound, politics and anti-colonial thought. Refusing the separation of aesthetics from material struggle, Kalash insists that music-making is never simply “art”, expression or cultural production, but a political practice inseparable from questions of power, violence, solidarity, memory and liberation. At a time when Palestine is enduring ongoing genocide and the infrastructures of everyday life are being systematically destroyed, his work asks what it means to listen politically, to inhabit time differently, and to understand sound not as representation but as a fundamental terrain of struggle.
Over three days, this intensive and immersive workshop at the Radical Ecology Studio in Webbers Yard, Dartington, South Devon offers a rare opportunity to engage deeply with Kalash’s theory and practice. Designed for multidisciplinary practitioners, organisers, researchers, musicians, artists and activists, the workshop combines discussion, listening, mapping exercises and collective reflection to investigate the relationships between sound, silence, politics, time and space, and how these forces are configured within everyday life and in relation to Palestine.
Beginning from listening, thinking and mapping exercises, participants will collectively explore questions of solidarity, engagement, activism and everyday practice. Together, we will consider the relationships between lived experience, historical narration, structures, events and language - from the writing of the Nakba to the current transformation of time and space under genocide - not from a detached theoretical position, but from a conscious and committed one.
This is not a conventional workshop or academic seminar, but a shared space for study, reflection and collective inquiry held in community.
Day 1: Politics of Sound
(Studio session — 16:00-19:00)
The first session introduces sonic thinking as a political framework, orbiting around questions of power relations, collectivity and community within sonic and musical cultures, and the politics of silence.
Day 2: Sound and Time
(Studio session — 11:00-18:00)
Building from the first discussion, the second day explores the relationship between sound and time — from historical time and memory to everyday life, duration and the experience of the present.
Day 3: Sound and Space
(Landscape session — 10:00-14:00)
The final session takes place outdoors across the landscapes of Dartington**, guided by listening and mapping exercises. Together we will explore how the politics of sound and the relationship between sound and time manifest spatially — not only through the resonance of sound in space, but through the resonances of politics and history themselves.
** This session will be conducted on foot and outdoors. Participants will need to bring suitable clothing, footwear and wet-weather gear in case of rain.
Tickets are priced at £217.39. Participants are asked to arrange their own travel and accommodation independently. Concession tickets are available at £70, alongside a limited number of full bursaries.
To be considered for a bursary, please email studio@radicalecology.earth by 1 June 2026 outlining your interest in the workshop and your need for support.