The thematic framework of sonsbeek20→24 revolves around labor and its "sonicities," connecting time, history and geography through a multitude of voices, sounds and vibrations. It invited us to listen to the sounds that have been relegated to the margins, to listen to whispered stories, to the sounds transmitted through song and storytelling, and to embodied narratives. The central theme of sonsbeek20→24 is the absence of a dominant image. sonsbeek20→24 aims to draw special attention to histories written "differently" - "in song, play, performance, dance, care, polyphonic rhythms and multiple motherless tongues through which memories, traditions, spiritualities, whole cosmologies traverse oceans and deserts."