Hello, dear listener!

Welcome to Voice Notes. We don’t know who you are, or where you are or how to call you. For us, there is something comforting in not knowing what you are doing; we hope it’s the same for you. These recordings are part of an exhibition called Comfort Zone, which was curated by the team behind ETC. Magazine. The exhibition, much like the magazine it is based on, deals with all the ways in which we understand comfort and safety as they translate into our ideas of family, love, friendship and community.

Contrary to the neoliberal notion that we must shed our comfort zones at all costs, we believe that seeking out comfort can be an act of resistance. We’ve asked the artists whose work is presented in the magazine to think of when and where they feel most comfortable, what being comfortable in the public space might feel like and what public spaces should be like to accommodate us better.

We’ve asked them to answer in the form of a story, anecdote, or impression that would help us understand what comfort means to each of them as they navigate the world around them.

We gathered their stories as voice notes and combined them into three walks. One through the city streets, one by the river that flows through it and one in the city park. If you wish, you can listen to them anywhere or anytime you feel like thinking about comfort. Perhaps to help you get into your own comfort zone or to comfort yourself.