Borgerservice for Listening

Performative installation: soundscape, printed matter (posters, forms), slide show, doormat, clothing, and existing civic-center interior

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August 15–16 | 10.00–15.00
Borgerservice (Citizen Service), Smedegade 7, 7600 Struer

Borgerservice for Listening is an artistic exploration of listening as a civic practice. By transforming Struer’s citizen service center into a space for attentive encounter, the performative installation invites reflection on how listening sustains communal life and democracy. In foregrounding listening as a foundational public service, the work asks: what if the most essential service a society could offer was the capacity to listen?

Inhabiting and transforming the routines and norms of a civic service center — an often contested yet indispensable public space for listening — the installation explores the potentials of architecture, performativity, and procedural practices for fostering attentive, shared presence as well as absence. Soundscapes, printed matter, performances, objects, clothing, and the civic interiors themselves converge into a subtle and ghosty choreography, inviting visitors to notice, absorb, speculate and respond.

By placing listening at the center of civic life, Borgerservice for Listening cultivates reflection on how attention, care, and dialogue shape social and political environments. Rather than providing answers or solutions, the project aims to start imagining what a public service built on listening might look and feel like.

The soundscape of Borgerservice for Listening includes the following sound art pieces: 

Between the earth and the moon there is a full sound, by Cecilie Penney (05:07 min.)

Kontoret, by H2O Slutclub (04:58 min.)

Glacial Hauntings: Death Rattle, by Tyler Rai (03:36)

Bee-ish material. Notes for listening translated from English to Polish and resonating within one A4 page, by Anna Orlikowska (02:00)

All previously published in Anthology for Listening Vol. II, 2024.

Slideshow:

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Proposals for Listening:

As a service (and a contribution to the Almanac for Struer Tracks) we proposed a series as ‘Proposals for Listening’.

Proposals for Listening & Proposals for the Struer Tracks Almanac

A contribution by Bureau for Listening to the Struer Tracks Almanac titled: Kommunal Praksis

See here for a series of posters exhibited in front of Borgerservice for Listening.

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Photo documentation:

Listen to an interview/reportage by The Lake Radio who visit the Borgerservice for Listening during Struer Tracks.