Lola de la Mata is a sound and performance artist based in Liverpool. She takes the anarchic being – the ear, as her muse. Duetting with her tinnitus she is led into an embodied experimental research practice which draws on the field of aural diversity for the creation of her glass and metal instruments.

For SFTOC 2026 Lola will be performing within the acoustics department in the University of Salford on a special commission titled ‘Our ears sometimes sing to us’

The ears and eyes are not tricked but expanded and re-tuned as the body encounters three acoustic chambers: ‘reverb’, ‘anechoic’ and ‘listening’. Lola de la Mata invites you to climb into the ear and imagine yourself inside the cochlea listening to the humming sounds caught in the stereocilia… our vibrating and sometimes singing mechano-sensors.

You will move between a bow and air performance which in another environment would be silent, an installation where collected tinnitus stories are made audible through glass sculptures, and an archive which invites you to listen with your eyes and hands.