4 October - 18 October 2026
Gallura, North-West Sardinia (IT)​​​
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Sound of Resilience​
A sonic exploration of belonging, memory, and collective imagination
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This autumn, SOPRA SOTTO invites an interdisciplinary group of creatives to Sardinia’s green West coast for a two-week residency to explore the theme:
'Sound of Resilience: a sonic exploration of belonging, memory, and collective imagination'.
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The residency invites musicians, (sound) artists, filmmakers, writers, researchers, activists and practitioners of all disciplines to explore sound as an inherently human and universal language.
A way to connect through the body, emotion and play, as well as to communicate a sense of belonging, identity, memory, resilience, resistance and collective imagination.
This residency explores sound and music as a language beyond the intellect, a vessel for shared human experiences of joy, pain, and beauty across generations and cultures, resonating through the body, emotion, and memory. Through music, voice, rhythm, vibration, silence, storytelling, and listening, spaces can be formed for connection, healing, gathering, ceremony and transformation.
Throughout humanity, music has functioned not only as artistic expression, but also as ritual, protest, war cry, oral archive, celebration, resistance, and a way of carrying collective knowledge. The residency approaches sound as both an artistic medium and a social practice, exploring themes of community, cultural resilience and remembrance, emotional expression and processing and imagining alternative futures. It invites ways of communication, storytelling and forms of knowledge that are intuitive, sensory and non-linear.
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The residency welcomes a wide range of practices. While music and song form an important point of departure, the open call also embraces experimental electronic sound, traditional and folkloric vocal practices, communal singing, field recording, dance, performance, multimedia installation, film, writing, poetry, research, social practice, curation, healing practices, activism, and interdisciplinary work where sound intersects with other artistic forms.
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Through a co-created programme of workshops by residents for residents, an intentional communal experience, as well as immersion in the Sardinian surroundings for inspiration and exchange, the residency offers a process-based environment for meaningful collective experimentation.
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After several years of organizing residencies across Italy and the Netherlands, SOPRA SOTTO begins a new chapter based in Sardinia. This first residency of many, hosted in an old farmhouse located in the Gallura hills near the West coast, marks the beginning of ongoing eco-cultural programs rooted in the Sardinian landscape, inspired by its communities and cultural traditions.​
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SARDINIA
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An important source of inspiration for the theme is Sardinia itself, where ancient and localized practices of sound, song, and dance carry stories of identity, memory, and resilience, inviting engagement with the island’s turbulent cultural histories.​
Throughout its history and in our current time, the island has been shaped by successive waves of outside rule, while local languages, customs, spiritual traditions and ways of life have continually adapted and endured. Music has been one of the ways this cultural memory has been preserved and passed on.
Sardinian traditions remind us that sound and dance has long functioned as much more than performance, but rather as a means for storytelling, remembrance, belonging, and the transmission of knowledge across generations. They also reflect Sardinia's layered past, where different cultures have intertwined, creating a rich and evolving musical heritage.
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DETAILS
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Dates: Sunday 4 October - Sunday 18 October, 2026
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Location: SOPRA SOTTO, Gallura, Sardinia (IT)
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Organization: SOPRA SOTTO; facilitator: Constance van Berckel
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Approx. 6 - 8 interdisciplinary residents
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€ 350 - € 550 per person
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Prices differ per sleeping situation (shared room or tent)
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Costs include: location, stay, meals, program, workshops, (basic) tech and art materials
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Costs do not include: travel costs to location, specialized tech or art materials
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INTENTION SOPRA SOTTO residencies approach artistic practice as a powerful tool for collective imagination and a potential catalyst for societal transformation. Artists, musicians, researchers, and creative practitioners do not only respond to the world around them, but also shape the stories, perspectives and culture through which we understand it. (Gramsci) Within this process, sound holds a unique role. It reaches us through the senses and the body, interacts with emotion and memory, and carries stories, identities, and traditions across time. Sound can preserve what has been inherited while opening pathways toward what is yet to come. This residency explores how sonic practices can nurture more connected, resilient, and caring communities. It asks how collective listening, singing, storytelling, and shared sonic experiences can strengthen relationships between people, place, and ecology, and how artistic practices can generate new narratives rooted in reciprocity, belonging, and collective imagination. The residency itself is a lived experiment in togetherness. By sharing daily life for two weeks of cooking, learning, creating, and spending time in nature, it creates a space for exchange, reflection, and collaboration beyond productivity-driven systems. Rather than focusing on finished outcomes, the residency prioritizes experimentation, cultural exchange, rest, and play. It is an invitation to slow down and to listen to ourselves, to one another, to the landscape, and to the stories carried through sound.
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