The composition WITHIN and the inquiry TACET are two intertwined projects initiated in 2013 in the context of the Sharjah Biennial 11. They started as a dialogue between Tarek Atoui, Council (curators Sandra Terdjman and Gregory Castera) and the teachers and students of Al Amal School for the Deaf in Sharjah.

These discussions took place with students of different degrees of deafness, and led to an exploration of a diversity of listening modes and abilities (anticipation, tactile sound, visual noise). During the biennial, this informed the structure of Tarek Atoui’s composition,  as well as a number of workshops with Al Amal students and a think tank curated by Council with a collective of researchers.

Since 2013, they also inspired new productions and an online publication. Through WITHIN and TACET, different modes of inquiries were experimented. This talk will look back at the different methodologies used and their consequences.