Ecovocality

Ecological thinking for inclusive voice education

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A collaboration between Mirmica, the Fundacja Nurt of Warsaw and the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Voice of Bologna, co-funded by the European Union as part of the Nurturing project - Networks of care through embodied art. The project took place in Warsaw from February 23 to 27, 2025, bringing together educators from various fields.

The main theme of the project is the exploration of the intersection between ecological thinking and voice education, through a practical approach that integrated studio experiences with outdoor activities, creating a laboratory for methodological experimentation oriented toward inclusivity and accessibility.

The workshop explored how ecological thinking can transform voice education into a more accessible morphology of practices. Starting from the question "How can an ecological mindset inform inclusive education?", we used voice as a case study to examine the interconnections between body, environment, and educational systems.

Methodology

The practice was articulated around the creation and facilitation of a focus group, open to both experts and non-professionals united by their interest in the human voice (broadly conceived), the bodymind culture, and sustainability studies applied to learning design. Through a combination of semi-structured dialogue, embodied practice, creative elaboration, and critical reconstruction, the workshop created a space for collective inquiry into vocal embodiment.

The workshop combined studio experiences and outdoor practices to explore how ecosomatics and voice studies can inform each other in creating inclusive learning devices around voice, sound, and anatomy. Educators from different fields collaborated in investigating the somatic dimensions of voice through an ecological lens.

Emerging Themes

The research reminded us that adding the prefix "eco-" to vocality is not a given and means considering the voice as part of a system of relationships. This perspective has practical implications: education becomes a space free from the logic of productivity, a scholé of voice, where different modes of vocalization coexist and reciprocally specify each other.

A result that emerged from the process was the recognition that the "transformability of voices" - the capacity of each of us to rediscover and reinvent our own vocal life - requires educational environments capable of responding to biopsychosocial variability. Somatic practices offer concrete tools to make voice education accessible to diverse bodies and minds.

The dialogue between somatic education and vocal education highlighted the importance of creating learning environments that explicitly recognize the diverse needs of participants, transforming structural predictability into an element that facilitates, rather than frames, vocal expression in all its forms.

The practice allowed for testing methodologies that connect individual bodily awareness (the inner landscape) with the experience of the environment (the outer landscape), imagining educational models that do not separate technique from the relational context in which voices develop.

Other themes explored include: communication as a dynamic exchange requiring vulnerability and courage, learning as an integrative process operating at both personal and collective levels, teaching as a balance of structure and spontaneity, and learning environments as nervous system regulators. These themes invite continued exploration of how ecological awareness can inform more accessible educational practices.

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