Sabrina Dalla Valle

ECO       POETICS

oikos           poiein

house          make

Ecopoetics is an artistic, scientific and meditative practice that offers some insight into how we dwell within our sense of language— which appears in many forms. There is language produced by humans, and there is also language from out of the overall soundscape which ‘surrounds’ us— our ecologies.

Language is a form of communication which requires speaking, but also hearing--- and even deeper, listening to all that resonates within our spaces related to our presence, location and movement. 

Moreover, our hearing is also a cosmic site for relating the fragments of sound and space within our attention to a greater order. In effect, when we listen (and we can listen without using the ears), we are feeling the harmonies, or the intonations between things, and we are using our bodies as a kind of measuring tool to get closer to what we hear. 

By listening to and assessing all the ‘languages’ that surround us, we consciously experience the activity of making a dwelling, which is different from merely dwelling. What is implied? Habitation, measuring, locating, building a world, a way of life?



Ecopoetics is a practice of assuming responsibility for describing our different worlds, and gaining richer understanding about how we dwell and build our dwellings within those worlds—or ecosystems. 

Beluga whale



In order for our species to survive, we must become selfless humans. This is why we need to start working together to find new ways to document natural and technical processes that reflect our ever-changing position within our newly expanding experience of reality.

Here we can learn how to decenter personal voice and include the other voices that are part of our shared worlds that reach beyond our own perspective.