Margarida Mendes’ research explores the overlap between infrastructure, ecology, experimental film and sound practices – investigating environmental transformations and their impact on societal structures and cultural production. She has curated several exhibitions and was part of the curatorial team of the 11th Liverpool Biennale (2021); the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial (2018); and the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016). She consults for Sciaena environmental NGO working on marine policy and deep-sea mining and has co-directed several educational platforms, such as escuelita, an informal school at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo – CA2M, Madrid and the ecological research platform The World In Which We Occur/Matter in Flux. Between 2009-2015, Mendes directed The Barber Shop, a project space in Lisbon dedicated to transdisciplinary research. She is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London and a frequent collaborator of the online channel for exploratory video and documentary reporting Inhabitants-tv.org.
In this essay, researcher and curator Margarida Mendes discusses how sonic technologies shape ocean knowledge, proposing counter-sonicity as a conservation tactic.