What happens when young people are trusted to lead, create, and teach—guided not by rigid outcomes, but by listening, care, and co-creation? In this reflection on a contribution to Mobilizing Citizenship, Mikey Kirkpatrick from the youth-led music programme Alchemy shares how they translated their programme from South London to Stavanger. Rooted in Deep Listening and critical pedagogy, the week unfolded as a collaborative experiment in sound, expression, and mutual learning. Here, they trace the process of building an environment where agency is nurtured, structure is flexible, and the act of making music becomes a practice of empowerment and shared responsibility.
‘Listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are not listening.’
This was the mantra of the American composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros. Oliveros founded the Deep Listening movement that began in 1970, a way of musical thinking that she described as an exploration of the elements ‘among any and all sounds whether natural or technological, intended or unintended, real, remembered or imaginary’. She was the author of Sonic Meditations, a collection of scores that she defined as ‘a healing practice, or a tuning of mind and body’. They are short instructional texts that invite you to listen differently, such as ‘Meditation No. 5’ that invites you to: ‘Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.’↵Oliveros, P. (2005) Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, Inc.
After Oliveros’ death in 2016, the practice of Deep Listening has been kept alive by the Center for Deep Listening, based at the Rensselaer Institute in New York, and the many people across the world who have been inspired by her music, writings, and Ted Talk ‘The difference between hearing and listening’.
What was clear from the beginning was that the young people were already full of music and creative ideas, and simply needed time, space, and some additional skills and resources to make them real, and to be heard.
Deep Listening is one of the inspirations behind Alchemy, the youth music programme I founded at London’s Goldsmiths University in the summer of 2017 in response to a callout from a local school looking for support with a group of students who were considered as being ‘at risk’ of dropping out of school. Following a phone call from a local secondary school teacher, I designed a ten-week pilot programme in collaboration with some youth workers on study placements, where these young local students could come to the university to access the music department and learn how to make, record, and perform their own music, culminating in a festival performance and mixtape release. What was clear from the beginning was that the young people were already full of music and creative ideas, and simply needed time, space, and some additional skills and resources to make them real, and to be heard.
When the pilot came to an end, the participants wanted to continue, so I proposed Alchemy to the university as a regular weekly workshop. Now, eight years on, the programme is still running and has grown in scale.
The Core Theories
In 2022 I was contacted by Kristina Ketola Bore, the curator at Kunsthall Stavanger, with an invitation for Alchemy to deliver a week of music workshops for their Mobilizing Citizenship programme. The brief was ‘to investigate how young people can use tools and strategies from contemporary art in order to express themselves’. Delays caused by the pandemic worked in our favour, as by the time it became possible to deliver the workshop week, I had just founded the Alchemy Masters programme where we offer paid training in creative facilitation to a group of six previous Alchemy participants who have turned 18. The idea is to offer them time and space to explore the relationship between their creative practice and teaching practice. It became the perfect opportunity to offer two of the masters, Omar Elsaaidi (artist name Refrain) and Timothy Wairama (artist name Tboiii), the opportunity to come and support the delivery of the Mobilizing Citizenship workshops, along with myself and music mentor, rapper, songwriter, and producer Martin Vito (artist name King Vito Speaks, abbreviated as KVS throughout this article).
During the Masters programme, participants study a range of educational theories and pedagogies through the lens of Deep Listening. Here is a brief overview of some of the core theories we explore:
Behaviourism (Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner)
Reward for academic achievement and punishment for failure, based on observable behaviour (rather than thoughts or feelings) and measurable outcomes.
Cognitivism (Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner)
A focus on how information and knowledge are acquired and organised (which can vary from individual to individual), looking at the thought processes behind learning and problem solving, and how information is retained.
Constructivism (Maria Montessori, Wladyslaw Strzemiński, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky)
An emphasis on how learners actively construct their knowledge and apply it, working new information into previous knowledge structures, often through collaboration with peers.
Socio-Cultural Approaches (Lev Vygotsky)
Learning that happens through social interaction in culture-specific ways, e.g., cooking in the home, skateboarding with friends, making music as part of a family tradition.
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Paolo Freire)
This begins from the belief that education models in the west are oppressive and dehumanising, and that there are tools that the oppressed can use to rehumanise themselves and each other, starting in the classroom. This can involve a change in power dynamics, starting with language, such as renaming the teacher a ‘teacher-student’ and the students ‘student-teachers’.
Engaged Pedagogy (bell hooks)
Directly inspired by the pedagogy of the oppressed, but with a stronger emphasis on love and empathy in the classroom, and the humanisation of the teacher: ‘education as the practice of freedom’.↵Hooks, B. (1994). ‘Engaged Pedagogy’, Teaching to Transgress. Routledge
Border Pedagogy (Henry Giroux)
Again, following on from Paolo Freire, Giroux suggests that learning can be structured differently to break down borders (including prejudice and discrimination) not by ignoring them, but by using them as catalysts for action and social change, and as a chance to deconstruct the stereotyping that inhibits learning and collective problem solving.
How We Work to Listen
These models provide a useful foundation, but are especially effective when they are implemented in parallel with Pauline Oliveros’ mantra. If we stop listening, everything will fall apart.
Every community has its own ecologies and, not unlike the practice of musical improvisation, requires constant listening, reflection, translation and adaptation. By keeping anti-oppressive, listening-centred, and care-focused models at the core of Alchemy’s practice, we have been able to mirror the creative flow state (after Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) as a kind of physical architecture consisting of multiple, simultaneous workshops. Here, participants design their own learning with their bodies by moving from one space to another to gather what they need, or have a chance encounter, such as inspiration for lyrics or poetry, learning how to play an instrument or produce a beat, or developing their voice, performance skills, music theory, and new collaborations. Youth workers, also flowing between the different spaces, play a vital role of being available to support anyone who is facing challenges.
Every community has its own ecologies and, not unlike the practice of musical improvisation, requires constant listening, reflection, translation and adaptation.
As an organism, we all work towards the same goal: creating together, and the potential outcome of recording and sharing new music, with an understanding that the process itself is already an important outcome.
This environment can foster peer learning in a natural way, which in turn creates a culture of co-design and a balance of freedom and structure that aims to empower everyone, both participants and team, to step beyond their comfort zone in their own time and realise their creative ideas—from making a song to starting their own initiatives. If someone has an idea, we do everything we can to support it from imagination into reality.
As an organism, we all work towards the same goal: creating together, and the potential outcome of recording and sharing new music, with an understanding that the process itself is already an important outcome.
This is the kind of agency we believe everyone is entitled to and the culture we intended to share with Kunsthall Stavanger. Our collaboration raised new and exciting questions for us: How would our methods of working translate into a new space and culture? We returned to Pauline Oliveros’ mantra and decided simply to listen, which inspired the title of the workshop week: ‘Are You Listening?’
How the Week Unfolded
Based on our core workings, I drew up a daily plan that could easily be adapted and changed based on the people in the room, similar to the original Alchemy pilot, aiming to spend a week creating in a collaborative way with the young Stavanger artists and professional team at the Kunsthall, leading to the creation of new recorded music and a live performance event for parents, friends, and the broader community.
This skeletal structure was crucial in allowing us to visualise potential scenarios for technical requirements and allow for a range of possibilities so we wouldn’t face any surprise hurdles. We were paired with a youth worker who spoke Norwegian and knew the nuances of local culture, and we were offered a producer to oversee the logistics. What happened was beyond anything we could have imagined.
Here is a brief overview of how the week unfolded, with a short video for each day.
Day One
‘Listen to everything all of the time and remind yourself when you’re not listening.’
We welcomed the participants and gave them a tour of the performance space, then went down to the workshop room, which was situated in the heart of the building. The day began with us asking the question ‘Who are you in the world?’
I introduced the group to the idea that creative practice isn’t just about one practice but multiple practices that overlap. I began by showing them the contents of the bag that I carry around with me that included a book about outer space, a notebook where I write and paint (even if I’m not very good at it!), and Pauline Oliveros’ book Quantum Listening (that invites us to listen beyond the confines of time and space) and shared one of my favourite mantras of hers, ‘Listen to everything all of the time and remind yourself when you’re not listening.’ I also showed and played the instruments that are part of my current process of exploring and mending my relationship with my culture and heritage—bells, double flutes, and half-mask (you can read more about that here). I explained that this week is about seeing and hearing the relationships between things from the perspective of a musician, recognising all of the materials around us that we have to work with, i.e. sound, space, people …
The young artists said that they had access to studio and music resources if they wanted them through youth clubs (contrasting with what is available for young people in London). On the theme of ‘Are You Listening?’, it was important to the group that it was a question or demand to the audience: Are you listening? Some of the participants expressed that the issues they faced often involved strong expectations that they conform and meet expectations from society. In short, they wanted to use this week to explore their rebelliousness.
After performances by KVS, Tboiii, and Refrain, we demonstrated some of the free browser-based software Bandlab’s capabilities, such as splitting up tracks into their various parts (voice, bass, drums) for learning, remixing, and re-composing. To work in the most efficient way, we split up into smaller groups to develop separate elements of a collective track, then came back together to record voice, flute, guitar, and keyboards. Young people quickly formed new friendships, and we identified potential creative partnerships.
Day Two
We talked about memory, hauntings, and how there are layers of overlapping culture here at Kunsthall Stavanger, especially during this week with Alchemy in the space.
Today was a day for continued experimentation and development from the previous session, while also imagining how what we were creating might translate into a performance in the gallery space. We began by discussing what an art institution could be for the community, and what makes an art institution experience interesting or transformational. Memorable experiences that were shared mainly centred around having learned something relevant. They told us that the entrance to a gallery is important, for example: it acts as a portal. We also agreed that when a story is told visually it makes a stronger impression, such as seeing how the trees in Hiroshima grew in strange and otherworldly shapes after the atomic bomb. Following the discussion, we set up some different creative zones where individuals and small groups sat and wrote together while we moved around and helped them to build their ideas.
Over lunch, we discovered that a lot of the young artists engaged with AI ‘characters’, that allow you to talk to fictional characters from books, films, or video games for as long as you like, where the rules of their world (book or film) are ‘real’ and affect the nature of the conversation. We talked about these AI ‘conversations’ and thought about how we could incorporate this reality into our show.
One of the young artists had researched overnight an old Norwegian tradition called stev, a rhythmic rhyming set of verses that talk mainly about nature. He was inspired by the Alchemy mentors’ rapping and thought there was an interesting connection with this tradition. We talked about memory, hauntings, and how there are layers of overlapping culture here at Kunsthall Stavanger, especially during this week with Alchemy in the space. We worked in the main gallery, exploring how we could incorporate his ideas into the space for the performance. We tried different ways of performing his version of stev. He wanted the audience to hear him without amplification, which meant his delivery needed to be strong and clear. We created a soundscape using some recordings he had made in a local cave, and looked at how we could manipulate speaker positions to create different sound reflections. We found that if you stand at one end of the hall and clap, the echo is very loud. The cave soundscape inspired him to re-create his visit there, so he began exploring the space while wearing a warm coat and a headlamp, creating shadows of the audience against the walls and calling out ‘Hallo?’ (which is what he did when he visited the cave, playing with the echo). His performances would be ‘hauntings’ between the musical performances on stage. Are you listening … to the memory of the soil where you are standing? Are you listening … ?
One of the artists had been making drawings during the sessions, connecting themes and sounds from the music around her to drawings (her favourite thing to do). We discussed looking into making some larger-sized prints of these for the performance space, and seeing next how these could be incorporated as inspiration for the performance, lyrics, spoken word, and more.
Another group talked about their inspirations, which were jazz and hip hop, and listening to examples. Some of the themes they were interested in exploring were love and relationships. They started writing one-liners, then two lines, then paragraphs. Once verses were written, they composed melodies and recorded their vocals, the beginning of a track called ‘With You’.
Day Three
We began the day learning to do traditional Norwegian farmer calls. Madelaine, who was the producer for the week—and who did an incredible job making sure everything ran smoothly—also had a lot of experience in workshop leading, dance, singing, drumming, and performance more generally, having run her own youth projects. Madelaine taught us the traditional vocal calls (you can hear them in the video), and this supported our research into stev as we explored how we could call (and listen) across space and time.
Other artists started making costumes for themselves with things they found in the space (the Kunsthall had a great selection of costumes, including some golden trousers that I wore for the show!), and discussed making a music video for their song ‘With You’ on Thursday.
Day Four
We began the day by talking through everything that had been created so far, and developed a logistical plan for Friday and the show itself.
The conversation about AI characters led to the creation of an original song called ‘Fictional Guys’, and the stev research led to an image of a spirit from Norway’s past, an ‘echo of an echo’, a ‘forgotten memory’ as the young artist described it. He decided to interrupt the formal introduction of the event by appearing and moving across the gallery space, chanting his stev. There was also prerecorded sound that he had created in the speakers that included cave recordings and his layered voice. We explored his movement so that he could glide, accelerate, and decelerate around the space, finding his path and intention. He wore a headlamp under his cloak hood, creating a face of light that illuminated the path ahead of him. His other character, the cave explorer, found himself in the room, projecting the shadows of the audience on the walls. As he approached the stage, Madelaine’s drum called to him, and he followed the sound, finding and illuminating hand-drawn pictures on the wall at the end of the room.
The morning was also spent making a music video for ‘With You’ in the workshop room while people wandered through and became part of it. Omar looked for props and objects to include, including bubbles that he found spontaneously and started blowing into view.
One of the young artists used a mask for one of them and played a kazoo in the other. We looked at how he could remove the mask and begin with the kazoo in the most effective way, matching his strong personality. He took it off and threw it across the room! Reflecting on our conversation about rebellion in Stavanger, it was good to see him with that energy on stage. Perhaps he and others can draw on it when they need it in the future—strength and agency, with a good balance of humour.
Day Five
We all came in the afternoon for technical rehearsals, soundchecks and plotting the lights, and a full cue-to-cue run through the show, practising how the transitions would work, including moving or repositioning the microphones for the next performer, an act of care during the show. They experienced using microphones and the ‘ringing out’ of the room to remove unwanted frequencies that would cause feedback. This was a dress rehearsal, so performers also rehearsed with costumes that they had found. One artist made an intricate headpiece that would hide her eyes from the audience, and another, while waiting his turn for rehearsals, made a cardboard cutout of a city skyline to cast as a shadow over the stage with his headlamp. Once the rehearsals were finished, we shared some pizzas and gathered to give thank-you cards to each of the performers, and collectively eased off any nerves with techniques such as imagining our feet as hands on the floor, breathing, and relaxing our eyelids and jaws. The performers finished getting their costumes and makeup ready and warmed up their voices and instruments. Once the audience was in, we walked up the stairs and took our places for the show.
Here is some direct feedback by a grandmother in the audience:
In today’s political and social medias’ climate of insult and viciousness, perhaps only the arts can give us hope that through a cathartic experience comes kindness. This is the gift Goldsmiths Alchemy and kunsthallen gave. Thank you - all of you. From a more optimistic granny ❤️
[My son’s] self-esteem has grown so much this week. (Mum)
And from a participant:
Thank you so much for being there for us and being helping and supporting while being very good people to work with, this goes for all of you. I would like to say thank you all of you for the wonderful card as a memory which will not be forgotten, a good memory.
You can see more feedback from the participants here.
As I have found over the years with Alchemy and other creative community programmes, it is the engagement of every person, from technician to director, sound engineer to photographer, that creates a culture of care and creativity. The fact that everyone got involved and invested themselves both as professionals and human beings meant that the environment was ideal for growing and sharing ideas, without fear of judgement or failure. Madelaine mentioned at the end of the week that she often plants seeds in the cracks in the pavement outside her house. Kunsthall Stavanger smashed open the concrete of the symbol of the institution for us, and we were the seeds, colliding after long journeys through generations from across the world. I believe we all grew, we all listened, and I hope the garden that remains will last for years to come.
Some Final Words
Returning to Kristina’s brief ‘to investigate how young people can use tools and strategies from contemporary art in order to express themselves’, it makes me think that it’s interesting to think of Alchemy as a collective sonic meditation, seeing ourselves as an improvising orchestra where each member is a musician (or deep listener) who brings their own experience, ideas, and language to the performance of the present. Everyone listens, adapts, incorporates, navigates consonance and dissonance, finds space for themselves, and makes space for others, and the outcome is a community of care; a force of nature for the future; a piece of music that will resonate for years to come.
Everyone listens, adapts, incorporates, navigates consonance and dissonance, finds space for themselves, and makes space for others, and the outcome is a community of care; a force of nature for the future; a piece of music that will resonate for years to come.
Kunsthall Stavanger has a history of opening its doors to the community, giving them free reign and use of the space. Other institutions have much to learn from them.
If you are a musician and teaching, keep your instrument close at hand, or if you are an artist or a writer, keep your paintbrush or pen nearby; a photographer, your camera in hand. Exaggerate your differences with fearless honesty, tell your story as it is, and document the journey, the process, the bits between with all of their imperfections. They are what form us.
This is some of what I learnt during my time at Kunsthall Stavanger.
Thank you to everyone who made this a life-changing week for us all.
Watch a video from the week with Goldsmith Alchemy:
ALCHEMY MENTORS
Martin Vito (aka King Vito Speaks)
is a mentor offering support with music production, songwriting, rap coaching, recording, vocal arrangement, artist development, artist mentoring, mental health management, musical direction, live performance, album curation, music release, and fanbase and community building. He is the founder of UYT (Unleash Your Talent) Media.
Omar Elsaaidi (aka Refrain)
started his journey into music in 2019, although he truly began his creative process two years prior through the art of poetry as a means to express his inner voice. Also known as Refrain, now six years down the line, his experience and his expression have completely transformed. From performing at the lower third in London to co-hosting headteacher conferences, his reach is most definitely impressive. His aim is to impact and support as many young people as possible, letting them know they are not alone in their fight between the world and themselves. This message echoes through his craft from released songs such as ‘Gods Got Me’ to unreleased songs such as ‘Stuck On The Grind’. He is currently studying for a degree in the Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies Degree.
Timothy Wairama (aka Tboiii)
is a rapper, singer, pianist, and producer. He is a skilled performer guaranteed to get audiences onto the dance floor. He is also an experienced recording and mix engineer, and producer with a growing following on social media.