Garbage sorting and old trees — that's what sustainability sounds like to middle school students

Garbage sorting and old trees — that's what sustainability sounds like according to middle school students is a sound work based on children's thoughts about sustainability; what it is and how it might sound. The sounds were recorded during a workshop conducted with pupils at Lunds montessorigrundskola in March 2023, the purpose of which was to find this out. In the work, you can hear several sounds that can be connected to the childrens' different definitions of sustainability, but they have also captured other sounds that they ran across by chance or made up in the heat of the moment. Kajsa has composed with the students' material and with her own recordings of the class's sound creation. The work is a juxtaposition of their associations - to electric cars, floods, paper bags, electric bananas (?) and artificial trees - and the artist's own - Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion and cacerolazo; a form of protest where one shows dissatisfaction and disrupts the prevailing order by banging and slamming pots and pans.

As part of the workshop, the students had to list everything they came up with that has to do with sustainability. You see some of these things in the title and in the example of associations above. Here are a few more you can take with you: biogas, rainforest, things that last, riding the bus, cycling, the "Panta mera" song, don't waste, don't throw plastic in nature, children, birds chirping, sailing boat, rain, waves, wind , organic, free range, plant right, math, scientists, music, don't throw away food, cook things.

Kajsa Antonsson is a composer and cultural producer based in Malmö. Her work focuses on exploring how we perceive and think about sound, with a particular focus on how these are informed by the infrastructures and institutions we move through. She has done projects both in Sweden and internationally, including with Konstmusiksystrar (SE), Ung Nordisk Musik, Poste Restante (SE), Inter Arts Center (SE), Ultima Festival Oslo (NO), Nordic Music Days, etc.