It may have been noticeable that I was absent from social media for much of last week. This was because I was hanging out with a group of sound art academics and researchers from London, The Philippines, and Hong Kong as part of a “Listening and Sound Tambay.”

Hanging out may sound like a frivolous activity, but this particular hanging out was in reality an inspiring week for me. To clarify this use of the term, Tambay is a Filipino term meaning “to hang out, to socialise, to stand by, to loiter” which Dr Dayang Yraola at the University of the Philippines—the initiator of last week’s tambay—describes as “an ambiguous form of social gathering often in parallel to dominant structures.” Dr Yraola’s long-term research has mainly addressed the role sound and sound art-related practices play in Filipino life and culture, and this Listening and Sound Tambay was set up by her to pay attention to the relations between sound and tambay, as well as to share knowledge and experiences, and work on cross-cultural practices for sound art research and archiving.

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