The title of the exhibition Listening Eyes was inspired by a dream about a conversation between a mole and a fish. The mole cannot see, and the fish has no voice — each lacks what the other possesses. Their meeting embodies the idea that perception is connected not to completeness, but to the chance of mutual support. Listening and seeing work together as interrelated ways of relating to the world. The exhibition uses this image to think of perception as something shared, partial, and constructed through interaction.

Listening Eyes is conceived as a digital environment in which sound, text, and moving image (co)exist without merging into a single form, and operate through horizontal resonances rather than a fixed structure, with thematic groups serving as points of orientation rather than final interpretations. In such a space, perception becomes a fluid phenomenon, and distance can create a new kind of closeness and intimacy.

Drawing on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the project understands perception as something that happens through our body, where the body is understood as a “point of view on the world”. The screen creates a separation between us and what is perceived, but this separation does not mean the loss of perception through physical and sensory involvement. As viewers, we always remain bodily situated — listening, watching, feeling, and sensing — even if we do not consciously reflect on it. This “distance,” on the contrary, becomes a condition of our (inter)relations. We may be affected by a flicker of light, a pulse of sound, or even a brief delay. All of these small / accidental actions encourage slower, more attentive engagement.

Within this structure, we, as viewers, become active agents who form our own experience by following the map and making choices. We choose the order of viewing, whether to return to a work, pause, rewind, mute or activate sound, read or ignore text. The work unfolds differently depending on these decisions. In many cases, without such participation, the work does not fully come into being. The viewer participates in the artwork's realisation.

These are curatorial propositions that each visitor may follow, challenge, or reconfigure.