Practical
Triomflaan, VUB (Entrance 6)
1050 Brussels
In this atelier, foraging becomes a way of gathering sound in close dialogue with the environment of the VUB campus. Instead of treating recording as something we take, we approach it as a form of listening with a place. We ask how recorded sounds can stay connected to where they come from, and what it means to record in a responsive and ethical way. If we take sound, how can we also give something back? Through hands-on exploration, shared listening, and discussion, participants are invited to rethink field recording as a reciprocal process, where human and more-than-human presences resonate together.
The workshop is initiated by sound artists and researchers Nele Möller (LUCA) and Ernst Maréchal (RITCS), in collaboration with artist/curator Gosie Vervloessem (The Foragers for VUB Crosstalks).
Practical information & registration
This two-day workshop takes place on Friday 24 April and Thursday 30 April, from 10:00 to 17:00. The workshop is designed for RITCS and VUB students and participation is free. Please bring your own lunch and whatever you consider to be a recording device.
If you’d like to join, please email a short motivation to goedele.nuyttens@vub.be.
Bios
Ernst Maréchal is an audiovisual artist, performer, and singer-songwriter. With his work, he seeks to address, understand, and (re)imagine issues of (in)equality, diversity, and commonality. He is interested in the ethics of engaging with the voices he meets: how direction and meaning can be given and positions taken – together – around shared interests that he alone cannot embody. As an artistic (PhD) researcher at the RITCS School of Arts/VUB, he develops Social Recordings, a process-based practice that gathers (in musical assemblies) field recordings, sonic encounters, and improvisations created in diverse social, pedagogical, and artistic contexts, in collaboration with artists and non-artists of all ages.
Nele Möller is currently working towards a PhD in the Arts at KU Leuven and LUCA Brussels. Her research project, The Forest Echoes Back, oscillates around the Thuringian Forest in Germany, which is severely impacted by monoculture plantings, climate change, and bark beetle outbreaks, exploring ways to retrace and react to these ongoing changes using field recording, live audio streaming, listening, and mimicry as central methodologies.
Part of The Foragers
The Foragers: Engagements Beyond The Human is an interdisciplinary art and science project that reimagines foraging (the gathering of edible or useful materials in one’s immediate surroundings) as a creative and ecological practice. Between October 2025 and December 2027, a series of activities invites you to rediscover your connection with the environment, not only in nature but also in unexpected places across the city and its edges.
The series is co-curated by artistic researcher Gosie Vervloessem, historian Benoît Henriet (VUB) and VUB Crosstalks, and supported by ERC FORAGENCY and the Chair Casterman-Hamers: History and Philosophy of Sciences. This field recording atelier is developed in collaboration with Future Narratives, the artistic research program of RITCS School of Arts.
The world needs you
This initiative is part of VUB's public programme, a programme for everyone who believes that scientific knowledge, critical thinking and dialogue are an important first step to create impact in the world.
As an Urban Engaged University, VUB aims to be a driver of change in the world. With our academic edcuational programmes and innovative research, we contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and to making a difference locally and globally.