Listen Festival In de Echo van de Ander

During the Listening Festival In de Echo van de Ander on 2 June 2026 in Breda, visitors will explore with artists, scientists, ritual facilitators, and healthcare professionals how listening, art, and rituals can help to give space and meaning to loss. 

The programme is built around the human challenge of managing loss and grief in a meaningful way. How can listening, art, and rituals help create space for mourning, connection, and meaning? 

Anne Goossensen, Professor of Listening & Quality of Coexistence and initiator of the festival: “We are a very verbal society that enjoys having ‘conversations’. Yet, these often do not do justice to the experience of someone who has experienced loss. Art and rituals open up space for the pain of others, allowing connection and lightness to emerge. It’s about mourning and celebrating.” 

Programme 
With listening tables, rituals, workshops, short documentaries, and plenary sessions, the festival explores the theme Rituals and Loss at the intersection of art and science. 

Four members of the Alumni-Celebrants Association Sub Rosa will perform various rituals, including the art-based tea ceremony ‘Where there is mourning, there is love’ by Elisa Hau. 

Additionally, there will be workshops on Deep Listening and themes such as ‘Listening with hands and feet’ and ‘Who are we for each other in the face of living loss?’. During the listening tables, genuine listening through not-knowing will be examined. 

The short documentaries Beyond Words and For Those Who Carry Us will also be shown, and the dance ritual Swarms will be available to experience. Theatre-maker Adelheid Roosen and doctor, philosopher, and author Bert Keizer will conclude the day with a plenary final discussion. Practical info The Listening Festival In the Echo of the Other takes place on 2 June at the St. Joost Monastery Chapel in Breda. 

The event is organised by the University of Humanistics, Avans University of Applied Sciences, the alumni association of the Celebrants Academy Sub Rosa, and Female Economy.