The Listening Room
One-on-one performance
Performance duration 25min

The Listening Room is a project that invites you to speak, and to be heard in silence, without judgement. Interpretation gives way to a direct experience of listening as hospitable reception. In touch with the richness of the moment – the richness we don’t hear, often- sometimes the sense of subject and object, of a me and a you, and those views that we hold, softens. All are welcomed into this fresh experience of the unknown.

‘I’m here to listen in silence to whatever you wish to say, in whatever language, to give an ear to your cadence. I listen so that you will speak. The words, like the listening, need not be perfect, our presence is enough. So, please come in. This might be a place where you wish to share an experience, a memory, a dream, a hope, a concern, a nightmare, a joke, a lie, or the story of your life.’

With its discipline of quiet sociability, ‘The Listening Room’ is performed over 6 days at UNSW Galleries.

The design of this experience is informed by the discourse between Buddhist contemplative traditions and the neuroscience behind empathy and meditation.

DeLys has also contributed a guided meditation based in Buddhist tradition aimed at cultivating empathetic connectedness and reducing anxiety –The Unbiased Heart. This work is available via our app, Courseofempathy.org [from 27 September].

Sherre DeLys

Sherre DeLys’ work focuses on deep listening. Her PhD research explores the listening art of mindful awareness and our capacity to rest in the unknown with creativity and compassion. Her relational  listening art projects are broadcast, performed and exhibited internationally- having received some of the world’s most respected audio art awards.

A Hemera Foundation Tending Space Fellow, she teaches mindfulness at Chris O’Brien Cancer Research Hospital, RMIT University, and  Barre Centre for Buddhist Studies. A former Australia Council New Media Arts Fellow, for two decades she produced creative non-fiction stories, soundscapes and poetic essays at WNYC and ABC RN, where she also founded a multi-award winning participatory media project described by The Conversation as “an outstanding  exercise exploring new ways for the national broadcaster to listen to and collaborate with its audience.”

Sherre will also participate in The Listening Panel at Art After Hours, 16 October at 6.30pm.