QAP:Are you listening?

In touch. Online. Proof of address. Hidden copy. Add new contact. Pending request. Notice of receipt. Message read. Tag friend. Follow. Unfollow. Reply to all. Dial 4 to return. Wait a moment. QSL, QAP, TKS. Over.

We have never produced, edited and shared so much. In an age of hypercommunication, technologies intermediate distances and extend the reach of different voices while enabling the amplification of individual thoughts and the smallest everyday details. Still, the optimism originally placed on the potential of new forms of communication as resources to confront us with diversity seems increasingly restricted to theory. It has become customary to note the systematic closure of our networks around already familiar opinions, sometimes stratifying ideological alignments and favoring intolerance to the detriment of trade. Echo chamber, narcissistic mirror, factory of hate, circuit of partial truths.

In macro-scale, there are several battles going on for the principles governing the communication channels. On the scale of the individuals, a doubt persists: is there, among so many exchanges, effective dialogue? And for this, does anyone practice any dimension of listening?

In ‘QAP: Are you listening?’, a title alluding to the acronym used by radio operators in Brazil, the idea is that the exhibition rooms are occupied by invitations to get in direct contact with the artists. ‘QAP: Are you listening?’ reflects on the scarcity of listening in the present time and rehearses modes of contact between artists and audiences. The artists were invited to elaborate proposals that favored communication during the exhibition period. There is not exactly a set of works ready, but invitations to the public. According to the content of the projects, they can use telephone or virtual channels, the actual presence of the artist or even instructions for participation. These works can happen entirely in the showroom, just start there, or have in this space a point of a network - it will be through the exchanges that the works will find their real dimensions.

Although guided by listening, the proposals are not confined to friendly invitations, distanced from differences. They launch themselves as bridges to the dialogue, which emphasize the present time of the visitors, as an invitation to be, by the chosen means of communication, close to the artists, willing to "waste time". Time, an unavoidable condition for listening, is practiced here as the antithesis of the urgency for productivity capitalized as labor or consumption. For those who want, there is time here to be spent to share, assimilate, internalize and even oppose the propositions presented. The exchanges, gradually dictated by the instantaneous speed of our informational flows, must here imply the time of involvement, of being available for listening, of being on line, but not necessarily online.

Research and Curatorial Department
Luise Malmaceda, Paulo Miyada, Priscyla Gomes and Theo Monteiro