Slow Listening

Produced by the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, Slow Listening is an audio project that asks us to pause and truly hear the urban soundscapes we often move through unnoticed. It emerges from the festival's wider Port Cities exploration, considering how the identity and culture of a coastal hub is expressed not just visually but sonically. This podcast is an exercise in attentive awareness, framing the distant blare of ship horns, the cries of seagulls, and the constant murmur of a working river like the Mersey not as noise, but as a layered composition that defines a place. Each episode immerses the listener in the unique acoustic fingerprint of a different port city, using these collected sounds as a doorway to understanding its character, rhythm, and daily life. The recordings provide a raw, un-narrated canvas, encouraging a meditative focus on the details often lost in the background. By tuning into these sonic environments, the Slow Listening podcast offers a fresh, contemplative perspective on what a city is, how it functions, and how it feels, all through the medium of sound. It’s an invitation to decelerate and discover the narratives embedded in the docks, waterways, and streetscapes that connect these cities to the wider world.