Convened by Pierpaolo Polzonetti at University of California, Davis and Karlton Hester at University of California, Santa Cruz

In the Sound Lab, UC Davis and local musicians and performing  artists will participate in a co-creative process designed to foster harmony not only among participants  but also with the sounds and rhythms of the natural environment. The project will transform the  Arboretum into an experimental creative ecosystem in which more-than-human agents—plants, birds,  wind, water, and other elements of the landscape—become part of a creative interplay. 

The Sound Lab will bring together sound and movement artists, Arboretum visitors, and the  environment itself. Participants will be invited to recognize that nature is rich in patterns that can serve  as blueprints for musical creation and collective harmonization. Through layered music, movement, and  guided improvisation, performers and visitors will engage in planned extemporaneity that allows  multiple creative agents to interact. The project encourages both humility and empowerment: humility  in recognizing shared agency within an ecological network, and empowerment in discovering that  collaborative creativity can foster a sense of connection and collective well-being. 

In the poem “Correspondences,” Charles Baudelaire describes nature as a temple where “colors, sounds,  and perfumes respond as one.” The Arboretum Sound Lab draws inspiration from this vision by inviting  participants to experience how music and environment intertwine through shared patterns, rhythms,  and sonic textures—birdsong, wind, water, and other elements of the soundscape. By attuning themselves to these relationships, participants will experience creativity as a responsive network in  which every gesture invites or answers another within the same ecosystem. 

The project is developed in collaboration with composer and music philosopher Karlton Hester (UC Santa  Cruz). Hester will serve as the project’s artistic architect, while all participants will share creative  responsibilities in both the planning and performance stages. The initiative seeks to reimagine a shared  public space as a site where creativity emerges collectively rather than as the product of a single  authorial voice. 

Hester’s work provides a vital conceptual foundation for the project. For decades he has advanced  Afrocentric philosophies of music that emphasize participatory and co-creative practices characteristic of  African diasporic traditions—such as call-and-response, collective improvisation, and the fluid  boundaries between music, movement, speech, and listening. In these traditions, music functions not  only as artistic expression but also as a source of resilience, community formation, and social  imagination. As Hester argues, African diasporic musical practices have historically provided ways to  transform hardship into creativity, sustaining hope while generating collective strength and freedom. The Arboretum Sound Lab draws on this legacy while extending it into a socio-ecological context.