Sara Harris Ben-Ari

ABOUT SARA HARRIS BEN-ARi:

I believe in the practice of listening to landscapes, moments, and the power of holding those in recorded sound as a gift to the future. The power to capture the ephemeral nature of sounds across the course of any given day, in a specific space, connects our imaginations to those places into the present. Soundscapes can be panoramic and telescopic. The unsaid is said with sound, replayed in the mind's eye. Interweaving sounds of places over time with voices of humans and other animals are at the kernel of both my journalism, teaching, and art practices. I explore the fluidity between these two spaces and the sonic expectations they carry. Archives hold modes of speech of days gone by, making them visceral, possible. I believe that sound can be the most visual medium.

For nearly three decades, I’ve made my living as an audio artist and public radio journalist in Los Angeles and México with a focus on issues of urban land-use, ed- ucation, and environmental equality. For three years in the wake of the 2008 recession, during the subsequent boom in Los Angeles real estate development, I launched and hosted Hear in the City: radio realities from the urban landscape on KPFK, 90.7FM with a talented group of young reporters. Before that, I en- joyed an enriching tenure as L.A. bureau chief of

Youth Radio at NPR West. My stories can be found on Marketplace , All Things Considered , Morning Edition, Living on Earth , and Mexico’s IMER national network. One of my favorite collaborative endeavors as an artist is: RadioSonideros- a collective whose works have been commissioned for The New York Port Authority’s FM Ferry Experiment , Metabolic Studio’s Not a Cornfield at the Los Angeles State Historic Park, and The Sounds of Cesar Chavez for the L.A.’s Great Streets Initiative with the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory, and a 2019 artist-in-res- idence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. In the teaching realm, I have produced multimedia documentary with teens at award-winning nonprofit ArtworxLA, and with a crack group of high school students in Tijuana on AudioPostales: cross-border radio.

I am a lifelong gardener and stray dog-and-cat steward, the pursuit of which eventually took my mapping and people skills to be Intervention Coordinator at the Northeast Los Angeles Animal Shelter. My passion for native plant-life and neighborhood fruit- sharing in my historic neighborhood of Solano Canyon sparked me to become a Master Gardener. I run everyday with my two boisterous dogs in Elysian Park, rain or shine, and I continue to map sound and produce audio landscapes in the realm of cinema and art galleries. My last projects are The Fragmentations Only Mean, a documentary-in-progress about the works of Noah Purifoy, and ongoing concrete poetry/performance with a collective called “1521, and Escritorio Público with LA Freewaves.  My current project engagement is guiding a new  oral history and community engagement archive with Metabolic Studio and artist Lauren Bon. I am a certified California Naturalist and Desert Climate Steward. My assemblage works have been shown at Barnsdall Art Center in Los Angeles (2024) and The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena (2025)