The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) and Atlantic Center for the Arts present a week of environmental sound events featuring the 30th Anniversary WFAE conference: Listening Pasts – Listening Futures, its first hybrid virtual and in-person international conference since 2011 and the first conference of its kind in the United States of America. Acoustic ecology, also called soundscape studies, is a discipline that studies the relationship, mediated through sound, between human beings and their environment.

This partnership supports the work of ACA in sound art, bringing global attention to its current programs, including the 5th Soundscape Field Station artist residency at Canaveral National Seashore in February, the Young Sound Seekers program that is supported by the National Park Service in partnership with Stetson University and teens from the Conklin Davis Center for the Visually Impaired and Blind, and the long-standing Soundwalk series.

Listening Pasts – Listening Futures features keynote presentations by author of Sounds Wild and Broken, David George Haskell (UK/USA); radio host and former advisor to the Canada Council for the Arts, Claude Schryer (Canada); and sound artist/professor Amanda Gutiérrez (Mexico/Canada) of Concordia University.

Stetson University is an additional conference partner, and have facilitated the presence of our keynotes speaker and special guest artist Jacek Smoliski. Stetson host two free, public events, a soundwalk led by Smoliski and a panel with the keynote presenters, on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

We know acoustic ecology and soundscape studies have much to offer the world with a pivotal environmental awakening and are thrilled to have all of our presenters and attendees join in this chorus of knowledge exchange and a few days of communal listening.