In Brief: Reading & Listening Groups

This page outlines the collaborative spaces I create through reading and listening groups, where participants share texts, memories, and embodied narratives. These sessions invite us to explore the "poetics of breath" as we engage in collective reflection and dialogue, bridging personal experience with cultural memory and enriching our shared practice.

LISTENING AND READING GROUPS

My Listening and Reading Groups form an integral part of my practice, offering regular community engagement that navigates the “poetics of breath.” I invite collaborators to share texts—written, spoken, and embodied—that resonate deeply with them and evoke the gesture of shared breath. In our gatherings, participants are gently guided through various forms of expression, from reading aloud and active listening to gentle embodied practices that encourage us to think with our bodies. My listening and reading groups create a space where we transition from our individual breathing to engage with the resonant voices of shared texts, forging a space for collective inquiry, transformation, and poetic encounters.

Current Listening and Reading Groups

‘Travelling’ Listening and Reading Groups - ‘Poetics of Textual and Bodily Breath’

Collaborators are invited to bring a text, quote, or memory that responds to maternal relationships, breath and transgenerational memory—whether drawn from another source or created. The “text” can take any form: a poem, review, story, archival document, academic excerpt, aural memory, or beyond.

In our shared spaces, we explore the “poetics of breath”—how we breath and the texts themselves breathe—through reading aloud and guided embodied practice. Fragments from Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs and Edna O’Brien’s A Pagan Place serve as anchors for our listening and reading groups.

These are collective spaces where collaborators are invited to engage as they feel comfortable—coming and going as needed. The text may be in any language, with events facilitated in English alongside Irish, drawing inspiration from the exhibition Chantal Akerman: Travelling at Jeu de Paume, Paris, which pays tribute to the Belgian filmmaker, artist, and writer Chantal Akerman and further texts by Irish author Edna O’Brien.

Breath, Memory & Materiality

Upcoming Workshops

Across Ireland | 2025

My Listening & Reading Groups create spaces for shared reflection, embodied storytelling, and intergenerational dialogue. In collaboration with Argentine Anthropologist, Documentary Photographer, Transdisciplinary Art Therapist, and Textile Artist, Melina Flaviana Di Fabrizio, we will facilitate Listening & Reading Groups across Ireland, engaging with transgenerational memory, migration, and maternal inheritance through text, breath, and material practices.

Drawing from Melina’s expertise in therapeutic photography, embroidery, and anthropology, these sessions will explore:

• How maternal memory is inscribed onto the body, textile, and land—examining breath and materiality as vessels for intergenerational transmission.

• Photo-embroidery and text as archives of care, absence, and inheritance, connecting feminist oral traditions to tactile and visual storytelling.

• Silences within the maternal—how listening, breath, and shared reading create a collective space to work through inherited and embodied narratives.

These methodologies extend my research on the maternal as a site of transformation, bridging transnational feminist philosophy, embodied practice, and oral storytelling. Through these Ireland-based workshops, we will foster intergenerational dialogues on cultural transmission, shaping an approach that can be expanded into other geographies.

Melina Flaviana Di Fabrizio Bio

Mind the Step, Dublin | March 2025

Listening & Reading Group – Dublin

Our Dublin session brought together voices in a shared exploration of breath, memory, and maternal relations. Moving through three fragments of text—Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs (the shopping list as both burden and anchor), Edna O’Brien’s Desert Island Discs interview (where she reflects on her mother), and participant contributions—we traced how stories, silence, and inherited emotions reside within the body.

I presented these as maternal scenes—moments where we can attend to our individual breath, collective breath and how the texts breathe.

We introduced ourselves through bodies of water, reflecting on how water holds memory, migration, and breath across generations. Through collective reading, we attuned to the rhythm of the texts and our own bodies, listening to how language and breath interweave. The session invited an open, processual engagement with text—where reading became embodied, words moved through us, and breath carried meaning beyond the page.

This Dublin gathering was the first of its kind, deepening the transnational dimension of these Listening & Reading Groups and opening space for new resonances between text, voice, and shared air.

A note on the photos: In keeping with feminist and queer ethical practices, only those who consented to photography are shown in the images, ensuring that participation remained a space of care and agency.

Tsarino, Bulgaria | September 2024

Reading and Listening Groups in the outdoor kitchen and woods

We disorientate through repetitive performances.
We reorientate through textual breath.
This is our shared “poetics of breathing”:
Reading aloud in the air,
Listening with our bodies.

Collaborators who arrive at these listening and reading groups, are invited to introduce themselves

through

quotes,

poems,

stories,

songs,

collections of words,

lists,

memories,

bodily rememberings

and images.

We speak into our shared air.

We share air.

Traces are left in the spaces of these ‘performances’.

‘Soon, we will weave the space as we speak.

Together, we breathe these words,

inhaling and holding them,

if only for a second,

before we have to exhale again.

We do not determined the space that surrounds us,

between us,

that passes as shared air.

If only for a moment,

We breathe,

We move,

We feel.’

The listening and reading groups in Tsarino culminated in a communal exhibition at the Razklon Gallery, located on site in Tsarino, Bulgaria. Local collaborators and visiting international artists and volunteers contributed handwritten fragments—each chosen for its resonance and lasting impact beyond the sessions. These texts were encased in a glass box and suspended in the mountain air, leaving lasting traces of our words amid the mountains, with cows, wildlife, and the rugged terrain standing as silent witnesses.

Tsarino Textual Breath | 23 September - November 2024

Mushrooms as Our Guide: A Listening and Reading Group in Warsaw

Warsaw | October 2024

Listening and reading groups are always shaped by the site they take place. I had been planning this group for weeks, but through discussions with local friends and the community, it organically merged with the seasonal practice of mushroom picking. We gathered in the woods, unsure where we would pause to read aloud. Guided by the mushrooms, our journey blended outdoor exploration with embodied literary practice. We read aloud Edna O’Brien’s A Pagan Place, reimagining it through the lens of the shopping list scene in Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs. This pairing challenged us to rethink modes of address in literature that confront transgenerational trauma and shame—particularly as the use of “You” in A Pagan Place spoke to the fragmented subjectivities inherent in these experiences.

Later, we came together to prepare and share a mushroom soup made from our collected mushrooms—a gesture echoing the communal, durational practices I’ve explored in previous residencies. Much like the intimate gatherings at Tsarino, this Warsaw experience created a space where living, eating, and reading intertwined, revealing deeper layers of shared memory and embodied history.

This event stands as a testament to the transformative power of combining outdoor, communal experiences with critical literary dialogue, fostering reflective encounters that reimagine both personal and collective narratives.

Poetics of Breathing: Textual Breath and Bodies of Water

Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia

November 2024

In my research, Poetics of Breathing and various influential texts form a vital part of my PhD inquiry. I regularly engage in solo listening and reading sessions, reading these works aloud to sense how the texts themselves breathe. For example, I carry Akerman’s text everywhere, My Mother Laughs—and due to Ryanair restrictions, I even left it in a Venice convent, where it awaited my return, next to a book about Pope Benedict XVI. I often perform these readings in the spaces of my performances and film practice, and I write about these experiences and they take shape in the scripts of my embodied workshops and inform my experimental research.

One memorable moment was reading Poetics of Breathing aloud by Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia, where two dogs joined me, quietly sitting as my words hung suspended in the air. Being near water is especially important—it echoes my filmic bodies - where water is present. These solitary yet profoundly connective moments are integral to my practice, bridging personal reflection with collective engagement.

Ethical Practice & Participant Privacy

In all my workshops, participant consent is central. Photos are only taken when explicit permission is given, ensuring that everyone feels comfortable in the space. To maintain an open and supportive environment for engaging with difficult subjects, I do not record participants. This approach fosters a space where people can share, reflect, and engage freely without concern for documentation.

Participant Consent and Agency

In all my embodied workshops and listening and reading groups, I prioritise participant agency and ethical engagement. Before each session, participants receive an Address and Consent Form detailing the workshop's purpose, structure, and any potential emotional impacts. This ensures transparency and empowers participants with informed consent.

I encourage all participants to read and sign the consent form beforehand, ensuring they have the agency to engage at their own pace and step out at any time if needed.

For more details, you can view or download the forms here:

Address

Consent Form

Regular Online Meeting Spaces - We Share Air.

Breathing Bodies – Mindful Writing Practice

Breathing Bodies is an online listening and reading group dedicated to the ongoing process of embodied writing. In our gatherings, participants share texts, memories, and reflections, inviting us to explore the interplay of breath, voice, and the written word.

Our virtual platform creates an accessible space for those unable to attend in-person sessions, allowing participants to navigate and express their embodied experience online. This is especially vital for individuals affected by chronic illness; drawing on my own experiences with endometriosis.

Our practice explores writing as perpetually unfolding— reflecting lived experience and emotional landscapes.

Join us as we listen, read, and write mindfully, transforming our words into shared breath. Whether you are a seasoned writer or just beginning to explore mindful expression, Breathing Bodies offers a welcoming virtual space to reflect and reimagine together.

Stay connected and keep up to date with my latest research, exhibitions, and creative projects.
LinkedIn | Instagram