SPACE21 Youth Workshop engages youth in attentive listening walks, collaborative composition, and sound-making. These activities encourage participants to creatively explore Slemani’s sonic ecology and history through sound. By blending environmental awareness and artistic practice, the workshop fosters confidence and collaboration. Participants learn to map memory and place through listening, forging a deeper connection to Slemani’s past and present while inspiring new sonic perspectives.

At the SPACE21 Sound Gallery, Dengbêj in the Disco is presented in Kurdistan as a space of sonic return and reactivation, grounded in the Kurdish proverb “her dar li ser koka xwe şîn tê” — every tree grows on its own roots. The work brings traditional Dengbêj vocal practice into dialogue with contemporary club listening cultures, framing sound as a living continuity between heritage, place, and present-day experimentation.

The Synthesiser Bazaar is a sound installation presented outside the Saray Building. Drawing on the vibrant atmosphere of Slemani’s music markets, where cassette culture, wedding musicians, synthesisers, and imported technologies converge, the work transforms the exhibition into a living sonic environment. By bringing these sounds to the doorstep of the city’s former administrative centre, the installation connects everyday urban life with historical memory, reimagining the archive as an active, evolving space of listening.

This evening listening session invites audiences to explore the sonic memories of the hammam through stories, recordings, and collective listening. Once central to social and cultural life, the hammam was a space of conversation, ritual, echo, and gathering. Through personal recollections and sound-based narratives, the session traces how these acoustic environments shape memory and community, offering an intimate reflection on the sounds that continue to resonate beyond the bathhouse’s walls.

SPACE21 with the University of Sulaimani, Slemani Sonic Horizon organises a mini conference on sonic ecology, youth empowerment, and inclusive pedagogy, combining talks, panels, listening sessions, and workshops to explore sound as a force shaping cultural and social futures. Radio Resonance Collective is a participatory radio and listening project that connects artists and communities to share memories, engage in dialogue, and explore collaborative sound practices. Transcending Research is a practice-led framework using sound, storytelling, and archives to rethink knowledge through place, memory, and community engagement.

Radio Bus is a collective listening journey that transforms a moving bus into a radio-based exhibition space. It revisits Kurdish bus culture as a site of shared experience and social connection, bringing together broadcasts, music, and stories that unfold in real time during transit. The project frames mobility as a space of unity, where sound becomes a medium for collective memory and public listening.

Simon Martin, born in 1981 in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, is a composer and artistic director of Projections libérantes, a Montreal-based company he founded in 2011. Celebrated for his “fascinating” and “hypnotic” music, Martin explores the beauty of sound emerging from silence. His works balance evocative sound phenomena with dramatic structure, shaping his unique artistic vision. Projections libérantes produces Martin’s distinctive creations, sharing his passion for the evocative, intangible qualities of sound.