Sonic Citizenship
Listening as counterweight
A programme marking the launch of the exhibition Prisons of Note and Democracy of Silence at the Nobel Peace Center, together with the launch of the book Music of Absence: An Aesthetics of Loss in the New Millennium.
Across the different contributions to this programme, listening functions as a counterweight to dominant forms of thinking and social organisation that can produce injustice, exclusion or marginalisation – revealing hidden or missing structures, absent voices, and alternative ways of living together.
The day moves between exhibition, artistic practice and academic research. As an introduction, Áine Mangaoang and Peter Edwards present two independent research projects: Prisons of Note draws on four years of research into music, sound and detention, including collaborations with artists and others with lived experience of imprisonment; Democracy of Silence asks what happens when participation is understood not only through speaking, but also through silence, hesitation, withdrawal and non-verbal forms of knowledge. The two projects are brought together in an exhibition including documentary films, photographs, texts and participatory installations.
After a tour of the exhibition and lunch, Lucy Cathcart Frödén introduces A Field Guide to Silence, an open-ended collection of prompts and invitations for listening.
Developed through workshops and contributions from participants, the guide asks how we might become more attentive to pauses, gaps, gestures, quiet and other forms of silence that are easily overlooked. Visitors to the exhibition will also be invited to contribute their own prompts to the developing guide.
The programme then turns more directly to imprisonment and music with Vi slutter ikke å rappe når vi sitter inne (We Don’t Stop Rapping When We’re Locked Up), a music video initiated by Kristine Utne Stiberg, aka Kristine Blir Rapper, and developed over six months together with a group of male prisoners at Ullersmo, a high-security prison outside Oslo. The screening is followed by a conversation between Stiberg and Slekke Wørld, one of the curators of the project for KORO, Norway’s public body for art in public spaces.
The launch of the book Music of Absence: An Aesthetics of Loss in the New Millennium extends the day’s questions to absence. If listening can draw our attention to voices that are suppressed or overlooked, what can music tell us about what is no longer there, or what has never been allowed to be present in the first place? Editors Christine Dysers, Judith Lochhead and Peter Edwards discuss different forms of absence in contemporary music and how they connect to broader social and political realities. Selected chapters will be highlighted, including Payam Pilvar’s work on the absence of female voices in Iran.
The event will be held in English. Read more here.
Prisons of Note is a Research Council of Norway-funded project based at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, where Áine Mangaoang is Professor of Popular Music and Peter Edwards is Professor of Musicology. Lucy Cathcart Frödén is researcher, lecturer and community artist based at the School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University. Democracy of Silence is an interdisciplinary research group supported by the UiO initiative, bringing together researchers in musicology, media studies, informatics and theology. Music of Absence: An Aesthetics of Loss in the New Millennium grew out of a 2023 conference at the University of Oslo and is published by Edinburgh University Press in 2026.
Programme
Mandela Room, Nobel Peace Center
11:45
Doors open
12:00–12:45
Prisons of Note and Democracy of Silence
Curator talk with Áine Mangaoang and Peter Edwards, followed by lunch and a tour of the exhibition.
12:45–13:10
A Field Guide to Silence
With Lucy Cathcart Frödén.
13:10–13:45
Screening: Vi slutter ikke å rappe når vi sitter inne (We Don’t Stop Rapping When We’re Locked Up)
Followed by a conversation between Kristine Utne Stiberg (Kristine Blir Rapper) and Slekke Wørld, one of the curators of KORO’s art project at Ullersmo prison.
13:45–14:00
Coffee break
14:00–15:30
Music of Absence: An Aesthetics of Loss in the New Millennium
Book launch with editors Christine Dysers, Judith Lochhead and Peter Edwards, plus special guests.
15:30–17:00
Exhibition launch reception
Please note:
Exhibition in the Pop-Up Studio September 18 – October 11, 2026
Drop-in all-ages workshop: 12:00-14:00, Saturday 19 September, 2026
Still from Gústi „Því að lifa lífinu“ © Gavin Toomey / Prisons of Note
Produced by
- Department of Musicology, University of Oslo
- Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival
Supported by
- TONO
- Music Norway
- Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
