Music for Wild Angels

JH: I would like to start our conversation by turning to your pedagogical approach. Since you mentioned being influenced by bell hooks’ writings on critical feminist pedagogy, I revisited her book Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994). In it, out of her frustration with her experiences as a student in classrooms, she offers ways to rethink teaching practices and constructive strategies to improve learning, arguing that biases rooted in white supremacy, imperialism, sexism, and racism have distorted education away from being a tool for liberation and critical thinking.

Because she understands teaching as a performative act, I can see how this concept can be productive for an artist working interdisciplinary with different audiences in various ways. I was pleasantly surprised that she directly addresses ‘voice’ in this context:

“Just as the way we perform changes, so should our sense of ‘voice.’ In our everyday lives we speak differently to diverse audiences. We communicate best by choosing that way of speaking that is informed by the particularity and uniqueness of whom we are speaking to and with. ... To teach in varied communities not only our paradigms must shift but also the way we think, write, speak. The engaged voice must never be fixed and absolute but always changing, always evolving in dialogue with a world beyond itself.”¹

As I read on, I came to understand that her reflections are actually all about voice: The competition for voice, the voice of authority—“the ‘privileged’ transmitter of knowledge,”²—how to create a space without privileging the voices of any particular group, to name but a few. I am interested to hear your thoughts on this and how you implement these “lessons” in your own pedagogical approach. For example, related to your research group / UDK seminar “Planetary Embodiment”?

LL: In “Planetary Embodiment” and my artistic-pedagogical work, deep listening forms the foundation of how I approach the voice. For me, listening is an embodied and participatory practice that engages more than the auditory—it extends to the body, intellect, and spirit, encompassing sensations, intuition, ideas, and narratives. It involves attuning to these layers within ourselves and in relation to others, human and more-than-human, beginning with the Earth. This relational listening holds space for contradiction and complexity, transforming how we think, write, speak, and share knowledges.

When we relate to one another, we often expect to be understood. Yet, living and learning together is rarely about comprehension, it’s about finding ways to coexist and support each other in opacity, recognizing that our voices are multiple and expressing diverse, sometimes conflicting, experiences. When bell hooks describes the classroom as “the most radical space of possibility in the academy,” she invites us to perceive the voice in these spaces as a means of questioning dominant narratives that exclude and demand conformity—a transformation possible only through deep listening.

Despite its progressive ideals, academia often reinforces hierarchies based on race, class, gender, and ability, prioritizing intellect over embodiment, discourse over action, and culture over nature. To me, education—and the voice that learns and teaches—needs to be reimagined within and beyond institutional walls and traditional classrooms. In my practice, I aim to create learning opportunities that recognize bodies as living archives of innate wisdom, nurturing learning as a vulnerable and intimate process that navigates through and beyond conflict with care.

These practices are rooted in somatic experiences that acknowledge the interdependence of personal, social, and environmental layers. In “Planetary Embodiment,” besides the practices shared in the learning environment, we also activated the knowledges through exhibitions and temporary classrooms in public spaces, culminating in the publication Planetary Embodiment: Cooking with Words For Systemic Change and Solidarity (2023).

JH: bell hooks also makes an interesting point about linking the personal and the academic: “So, one of my teaching strategies is to redirect their attention (the students’) away from my voice to one another’s voices.”³ Regarding your and Isabelle Edi's performance “Sound Ecosystems: Deep Listening, Collectivity & Care” at Kunsthaus Hamburg as part of Lila-Zoé Krauß's solo show, on the power of deep listening, you spoke about the shared auditory journey you wanted to create, bringing together personal and ecological narratives. How did you achieve this, looking back at it? And what do you think can be learned when personal experiences are shared in conjunction with academic subjects?

LL: In “Sound Ecosystems: Deep Listening, Collectivity & Care,” Isabelle Edi and I aimed to create an immersive experience where every participant became an active contributor. Rather than establishing a traditional stage or clear separation between performer and audience, we proposed a collaborative composition in which all voices shaped the storytelling.

The dramaturgy was guided by selected tracks, field recordings, spoken and sung words, and somatic exercises, weaving together subjective, ecological, and social themes. Binaural sounds, intentional pauses, and silences added depth to this sonic field, allowing participants to move through layers of sensations and listening.

As the narrative unfolded, co-creators were invited to reflect on what was alive and transforming within them and the world and to share their stories, attuning not just to what was presented, but also to each other. Through this process, the room became a living ecosystem, where bodies and sounds moved together, opening space for grief, challenges, and joy to be held and shared. This collective process blurred the lines between individual backgrounds and shared realities, making intellectual ideas more tangible.

JH: Your performances and teachings often involve you creating particular environments using soil, plants, sand, neon lights, and flashing lights. What motivates you to construct these settings, even in teaching sessions, beyond their apparent visual appeal to the audience? What atmosphere are you after?

LL: The atmosphere I aim to create supports an embodied and relational way of knowing and languaging. For me, crafting these environments goes beyond visual appeal; it’s about evoking a sensory experience that allows participants to engage more sincerely with the research themes. For example, soil and plants connect us to the Earth, inviting reflection on our relationship with the more-than-human world. Sand evokes feelings of temporality, grounding, and extraction, while neon-flashing lights, chains, and metallic fabrics disrupt and highlight moments of intensity and contradiction. These elements help build an ecosystem where people can feel, rather than intellectualize, the presented ideas.

By engaging multiple senses and incorporating organic and inorganic materials, I aim not to naively resolve the dichotomies but to expose them. I invite participants to step outside conventional realities and encounter these concepts more viscerally. It’s like a spell—what may initially appear as a painting or sculpture becomes relational. When we sit together for tea with the ceramic cups that compose the installation, what truly matters is our exchanges.

Lately, I’ve allowed myself to be more experimental, focusing on my own learning and emancipation first, so I can share these insights with others. Art-making, writing, and teaching are how I make sense of my ideas and experiences. While creating these ecosystems, I’m cultivating intimacy with my voice and learning how to hold joy while engaging with complex themes that—let’s be fair—won’t be solved by art but can find a space within it to be acknowledged.

JH: Elsewhere, you explained that you had come to recognize writing as your principal mode of self-expression. You discovered that integrating your written words with musical compositions evoked a profound response from your audiences. Consequently, you began to use live musical performances as your main medium. The track for Music for Wild Angels creates an atmospheric soundscape, combining haunting vocal elements with echoes that linger in the air, resembling whispers or cries. The persistent rumble, evocative of thunder or the stamping of horses, adds a sense of urgency, but at the same time, because it is continuous, it grounds the composition. This background is complemented by sporadic vocal interjections, the cry of a bird, interweaving natural and ethereal elements. The layered audio components create a complex texture that is difficult to decipher, adding to the overall mystique. I’m curious about your approach to creating the lyrics for your songs. What definition of wildness are you trying to counter?

LL: Music for Wild Angels reflects my need for experimentation and queering the language of resistance. Wildness, for me, is an invitation for refusal and imagining paths that ground us back to the Earth. It challenges rigid structures that confine and categorize, inviting freedom and movement. The mention of angels evokes a connection beyond the visible and material, intertwining elements of transcendence with the Earthly.

This idea is central to the track “Thunder,” included in this interview. Here, the sound represents a force that cracks us open to what truly matters beyond illusions. It also symbolizes Oyá, a deity in the African spiritual practices of Umbanda and Candomblé, which are central to Brazilian culture. Oyá is associated with transformation and the opening of pathways. These references, shaped by the syncretism within these spiritual practices—where African traditions intertwine with other cultural and spiritual elements—have deeply influenced my understanding of the wild forces of nature.

While “Thunder” focuses on inner transformation, it is only one part of the hour-long performance. Other sections shift the discourse to broader political and social dimensions, becoming more direct and concrete, expressed through the crackling of fire, the rustling of leaves as faster beats. The composition is audiovisual and features a static video recorded in a forest in Chapada Diamantina, Bahia, Brazil. Though the footage remains still, the tropical plants within it subtly move, adding a dynamic quality. When I presented this work in Marseille, I also used local plants to compose the physical scenography.

Thunder (Lyrics)

Just wait and see the light shining

Just wait and see the world turning

It cracks, it crashes, it opens spaces within the heart

It cracks again, and opens more space, to flourish within the chaos

This light will flourish within your heart

Your heart

The emotional balance

Keeps flora and fauna balanced throughout Planet Earth

Just wait and see, this light will shine inside

The light that you see

On the surface of things

Is just a kind of illusion

Don’t be deluded

Just wait and see the light

JH: For your recent lecture performance, LAS invited you to contribute to their summer program by accompanying Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s “Pollinator Pathmaker”—an art project that creates gardens designed explicitly for pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and other insects. The work seeks to shift the perspective on a garden design from a human-centered view to one that prioritizes the needs of pollinators, which are crucial to the reproduction of many plant species. With pollinator populations declining due to habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change, Ginsberg challenges us to consider what a garden would look like if it were designed with pollinators in mind, acknowledging their unique vision, foraging behavior, and seasonal patterns. How did you approach this particular garden?

LL: I like to say that pollinators embody and inspire a polyamorous relationship with the Planet—they thrive in a polyculture based on collaboration, diversity, and care for all human and more-than-human ecosystems. They are responsible for about 75% of the world’s leading plant-based food crops and are key in sustaining healthy ecosystems. Without them, terrestrial life as we know it would be at risk.

In this performance, commissioned by LAS Art Foundation, I invited the audience to imagine the world through the perspective of a pollinator, shifting away from a human-centered approach. I composed a spoken-sung narrative in the form of a lecture performance, using audio excerpts from Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s project, which featured the sounds of various pollinators—bees, moths, butterflies, and others. Singing and speaking over this soundscape, I walked through the garden, engaging with those present and inviting them to connect emotionally with the environment.

The language and narratives I used were intended to inspire a sense of interdependence and responsibility. By asking questions like “How is monoculture expressed in ourselves?” and encouraging reflections on reciprocity, I aimed to create a space to question the narratives of scarcity and separation that dominate subjective, ecological, and social frameworks.