Author: Radio Atlas

“In December 2020, my family and I were able to visit my Cũcũ (Grandmother) in her home in Githũnguri, Kenya. We walked around the farm — just as we always do when we visit — but this time, I found myself paying more attention: to the ground, to our languages of Kiswahili and Kikuyu; to the trees and fruit. It felt like the things around us were silently teaching me.”

Nyokabi Kariũki (b. 1998) is a Kenyan composer based between Kenya and the US. Her sound is ever-evolving, ranging from classical contemporary/experimental music to film, sound art, and (East) African musical traditions. She performs as a pianist, vocalist, and on instruments from the African continent – particularly the mbira and djembe. Nyokabi’s works have been seen at events around the globe, including the Hearsay International Audio Festival, where ‘A Walk Through My Cũcũ’s Farm’ received the 2021 Hearsay ‘Art’ Award; and her concert music has been regularly sought after, with commissions from the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Men’s Ensemble, to performances by Chromic, Third Coast Percussion, and more. Nyokabi continues to explore music and its impact in different ways, ultimately driven by a yearning to explore sound as a tool to not only re-discover the stories of her culture, but also to highlight its significance, and contribute to the preservation of African stories.

Listen to Nyokabi Kariũki’s music – and an extended version of this piece – on her Bandcamp and learn more about her work on her website.

Sardinian poet and ecologist, Orlanda Sassu, devoted her entire life to recording audio as an archive for the memory of her village and of the language she was afraid to lose.

Writing poems and mutetus (a Sardinian poetic form in the oral tradition), her voice crosses temporal barriers and takes us to the symbolic places of her existence – the river, the village, the sea, the hut built around a secular tree on the sand dunes of Pistis, together with her companion Efisio, a poet himself.

Iolanda, as she was known in her community, relied on the magnetic tapes to travel through time, return to the memories of her past and challenge the possibility of existing in the future, reaching us as a voice that is alive and present.

Iolanda They Call Me By Name was produced as part of the You Are So Sound (YASS!) mentorship program and production grant under the guidance of Rikke Houd and premiered at the 2021 Lucia Festival.

The story of a Brazilian woman who borrowed money from a ‘coiote’ to flee Brazil, leaving behind her two-year-old son, and crossed the border between Mexico and the USA on foot to escape death at the hands of her husband. Domestic violence against women in Brazil is a migration factor more common than we imagine.

‘Between Four Walls’ won the Best Documentary: Non-English Language award at the 2021 Third Coast International Audio Festival.

This episode was produced by Heloiza Barbosa, Paulo Pinheiro, Diogo Saraiva, Valquiria Gouvea and Adam Gamwell

The art-illustration is by Carli Ayô

Faxina’s theme song was composed by Anaís Azul

The episode’s original music is by Diogo Saraiva and Paulo Pinheiro.

You can follow Faxina on Instagram, facebook, and Twitter at @faxinapodcast You can leave them message on their WhatsApp (617) 396-6062. And you can support the work Faxina are doing by donating to their crowdfund campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Faxina-Podcast

28 years ago, a man found an injured baby stork. Shot in the wing, she couldn’t fly. She was predestined to die. But the man changed her destiny.

Did he know that she would change his destiny just as much?

To keep her safe, warm and well fed, Stjepan had to give up on his own freedom of movement. Thanks to him – and against all odds – Malena was not only able to live, but also to find love – Klepetan.*

About 10 years ago an article about the old man and the stork came out in a local newspaper. Little by little the news spread, gaining worldwide fame as an unusual love story. But life is not a novel. Being someone’s wings is a full-time position. There’s no vacation, no retirement and especially not when the spotlights are on.

*In Croatian, Malena means ‘The Little One’, and Klepetan ‘The Clattering One’.

Winner of Best European Radio Documentary at the Prix Europa 2021

A feature by Marta Medvešek
Music by Jan Johansson
Coach: Gabriela Hermer
Sound: Bodo Pasternak, Erik Lehman, Marta Medvešek
Produced for the Åke Blomström Award with support of rbb, 2020.
Special thanks to Edwin Brys and the Åke Blomström 2019 training group.

Marta Medvešek is a Croatian audio artist based in Berlin. Her first piece – Guest Workers 2.0 – won the inaugural Adam Mickiewicz Institute prize. She’s produced work for BBC Radio 4’s Short Cuts, The Allusionist, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Blinkist. She’s won the Åke Blomström Award 2019 for young feature makers, in the frames of which Fly or Die was produced. Fly or Die won the Best European Radio Documentary prize at the 2021 Prix Europa.

Jørgen is 95 years old and has lived two lives. One as a husband and father, and one where he could be himself.

After fifty-two years of marriage, he comes out, aged 80 years old.

Produced by Nanna Hauge Kristensen
Edit and mix: Ole Fugl Hørkilde

‘Stew with Za’atar’ talks about coping with post-traumatic stress through Elena Dikomitis’ personal recount of the devastating August 2020 explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. In conversation with a psychologist, Dikomitis engages with her own memories to eventually take control over them.

Elena Dikomitis won the 2021 Korte Golf Competition with her Dutch spoken podcast ‘Stoofpot met Za’atar’ (‘Stew with Za’atar’). Korte Golf is organized by Oorzaken, a Dutch organization for storytelling in audio. www.oorzaken.org

Elena Dikomitis is a Belgian-Cypriot humanitarian aid worker specialised in communication, policy and advocacy work in the Middle-East. Both in her professional and personal life, she documents the needs and stories of people in conflict situations, in particular refugees. Dikomitis has Master’s degrees in Journalism, International Relations & Diplomacy and African Languages & Cultures.

Translated by Sofia Saldanha and Amanda Booth

Sofia Saldanha is an award winning audio producer. She started her radio adventure in Portugal at Rádio Universitária do Minho, has a masters degree in Radio and is a graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Sofia is part of In The Dark, a non-profit organization based in London, that presents audio documentaries from around the world to live audiences. In 2018 she started In The Dark Lisboa. Sofia is the author of a documentary series that tells the story of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.

This short documentary was the winner of Tempo Documentary Festival‘s Short Dox Radio award in 2019.

Fredrik Ramel is a radio journalist and graduate from the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. Currently producer and host for the podcast P3 Dystopia for Sveriges Radio, a show about the dangers facing mankind, and how to prevent a dystopian future.

Made in April 2020, Las Raras recorded this episode in their apartment in Santiago de Chile during the mandatory quarantine to prevent Covid-19.

This episode features soundscapes recorded in Barra de Valizas, Uruguay, in Robinson Crusoe Island and in Coihueco, Chile.

Las Raras is a Spanish-language non-fiction storytelling podcast that features people who resist norms, who work for social change and challenge the status quo. 

To date, Las Raras has published 26 episodes across 4 seasons. The 20-30 minute episodes include first-person testimonials, field reporting, soundscapes, sound design and original music to make it a unique documentary-style podcast in Latin America. 

Las Raras has been recognized with various awards and grants, including funding from the IWMF and was chosen among thousands of applicants to be part of the inaugural Google Podcasts creator program. 

Co-Creator, Host and Content Director: Catalina May is a journalist from Chile who worked for more than a decade in press and in academia before creating Las Raras. 

Co-Creator and Sound Director: Martín Cruz is an experienced sound engineer, musician, and aerial cinematographer.

During the drought the road is dry features the voices of Jan Gola (Poręby village), Magda Maksimiuk (film critic), Paulina Mirowska and Ola Czerniawska (activists from Earth Strike), Anna Andrzejewska (hydrologist, Kampinoski National Park), Wiktor Kotowski (wetland ecologist, University of Warsaw), Ewa Rudnicka (linguist, University of Warsaw).

“Susza wywarła wielkie spustoszenie” (the drought has exerted havoc)— this sentence is one of the best known in Polish cinematography. In the movie Rejs by Marek Piwowski, where it appears, it means almost nothing but creating a kind of surrealistic situation.

But “The drought has wreaked havoc” is real now. I explored the language we use and used to describe lack of water/dryness/heat. It’s a new situation many of us face for the first time in our lives. The language didn’t change at all, but some old words put in a new context begin to resonate.

BARTOSZ PANEK is a radio feature documentary maker and reporter with almost 20 years experience. He is the winner of Polish and international awards, including the Prix Italia for best radio documentary. His work has been highlighted in competitions in Italy, France and Croatia.

A stipend holder from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, his first book— on the Polish Tatars— was published in the summer of 2020.

CONSTELLATIONS is a sound art and experimental narrative collective that illuminates international artists making sound works that convey meaning through evocation and abstraction. They curate and produce a podcast, live events and publish sound materials.