Under the project “A Ghost City“, a series of night urban explorations that the groups Stalker and No Working have realized between the 15^th and the 31^st of August 2017, Echis started a new audio story-telling workshop: “Sound Dream”.

Five meetings, from August 21 to 25, during which the neighbourhoods of Tiburtina, San Paolo, San Giovanni and the historical centre have been searched with recorders and microphones, collecting sounds, voices, stories of residents, desires and dreams that cross them, but also searching, inside the audio or journalistic archives, for stories’ traces concerning these neighbourhoods.
The material collected and the participants’ productions realized during the workshop were used during the night walks.

This clip is a mix of day and night sounds, realized during Sound Dream (ITA):

L'articolo Sound Dream – Workshop on sounds and urban stories proviene da Echis.

Pietramala – Chronicles from an abandoned village is a soundwalk, an audio-guided story, that brings you to the discovery of one the many abandoned villages of Calabria.
Accompanied by Aunt Rosa, one of the last residents of the village, you will go up and down the old city of Cleto, walking through its alleys and stairways, unfolding the last 70 years of its history, years that have changed the face of Cleto’s community forever.
Pietramala is the old name that many elders still use today to refer to this tiny village in Cosenza’s inland.
At the eyes of the adventurers who, crossing the Tirrenic coast, decide to climb up the hills full of olive trees to reach it, this old medieval village looks like a long line of houses that slips smoothly along a limestone ridge. To the ones who stay there, walking through its historical centre, the village looks empty and lifeless.
The abandonment started in the recent history, the last 70 years. A story of hunger, emigration and job seeking, but also of misrule and patronage. A story that is only waiting for ears ready to listen.

A soundwalk is a moving audio-story, therefore, to listen to Pietramala – Chronicles from an abandoned village (in ITA), you have to:
-have headphones and a smartphone with data traffic or ask in advance mp3 players prepared by Associazione La Piazza (+39 3898789518 / info@cletofestival.com);
-be at the bottom of Cleto historical centre in this exact point, once you are there you just have to press play.

Production: Echis – Incroci di suoni & Associazione La Piazza
With the voice of: Fiorella Caputo, Carolina Pagliaro, Salvatore Mendicino, Antonia Cuglietta, Angelina Caputo, Mario Montuoro, Giuseppe Caputo, Carola Nicastro, Marco Stefanelli, Ivan Arella, Debora Caputo, Leopoldo Puteri, Vincenzo Lepore, Maria Nicastro, Ginevra Sammartino
And testimonies from: Fiorina Bernardo, Angelina e Giuseppe Caputo, Antonia Cuglietta, Luisa Falcone, Salvatore Mendicino, Mario Montuoro, Carola, Corrado, Giuseppe e Maria Nicastro, Carolina e Maria Pagliaro, Luigi Pellegrini, Rosanna Santoro, and of all the residents met among the squares and alleys of the village.
Text and sound: Marco Stefanelli

L'articolo Pietramala – Chronicles from an abandoned village proviene da Echis.

How might we legitimise migrants’ voice among media? How can we empower them to become active actors in the creation of information? Can radio as a storytelling tool, and sound as an artistic medium, be used by migrants to freely express themselves?

The project RifugiART had, inter alia, the goal of exploring these questions and find answers through a series of weekly workshops, that from January to April 2017 has involved a group of 14 asylum seekers, refugees and migrants. During the workshop, participants worked on a participatory narrative mapping of some specific neighbourhoods in Rome. Interviews, auto-biographical story-telling, cooking recipes and radio fictions realized by the participants have been put together to create the soundwalks of Guide Invisibili, that will accompany listeners in the discovery of the neighbourhoods of Trevi and Piazza Vittorio through the eyes of migrants.
A way to question our own perspective on a city we often live carelessly and, at the same time, to give new enphasis to the experiences and stories of the new citizens.

The project RifugiART was born from an idea of Laboratorio 53 ONLUS in collaboration with Echis – Incroci di suoni, Alamiré Onlus and Liscía.

Street Interviews (ITA):

L'articolo RifugiART – Audio Storytelling workshop with migrants proviene da Echis.

Nine months of stories told and listened to, week after week, during the story-telling workshop, with the contribution of 14 boys and girls from Laboratorio 53. We created two soundwalks that guide the listener-explorer around the city of Rome, that is invited to follow a red thread that unfolds through the multiple life stories, the thoughts, traditional and cultural reference points of Bakary, Noshad, Baba, Miguel, Alì, Samuel, Awaz, Kaba, Sissoko, Lamine, Ousmane, Sidia, Lassana, Abdoul. Your Invisible Guides during the experience.

GUIDE INVISIBILI is an opportunity to look at the city with new eyes. The stories unfold during the walks and aim to break the mental barriers, intersecting everyday life experiences with the migrant narration, on the background of roman neighbourhoods, the path gives different and unexpected shapes to the city.
You just have to get out in the street, put your headphones on, press play and let yourself be carried away by the stories. Vortex up and down among the coloured stalls of the Esquilino market or in between crowds of loud tourists of the historical centre.

NEXT SOUNDWALKS:
Piazza Vittorio: New appointments soon!
Centro Città: New appointments soon!
.   

Pay attention: we are working on the translation of the soundwalks in English. Right now the audiofiles are only in Italian.
Places are limited!
To sign up write an e-mail to: guideinvisibili@gmail.com including the day and time you want to join the soundwalk.
NB: to listen to the soundwalks you will need a smartphone and earphones or headphones.

 THE GUIDE INVISIBILI

       

INVISIBLE GUIDES has been realized from September 2016 to May 2017 as part of the project RifugiART by Laboratorio 53 Onlus with Echis, Alamirè Onlus and Liscía funded by Fondazione Alta Mane Italia.

Guide Invisibili won the Global Junior Challenge 2017  for the category “ICT for integration of migrants and refugees”.

L'articolo Guide Invisibili – Soundwalks with new citizens proviene da Echis.

Poveri N.T. (Poor Neuro Typicals) is the audio-documentary realized by Cristina Magrini and Echis based on the material recorded with the project Aspiradio in 2016.

Broadcasted on Rete UNO of RSI (Radio Svizzera Italiana) on 3^rd of September, Poveri N.T. is the story of a swim teacher, Cristina, and her relationship with neurotypicals.

Listen to the intro of Poveri NT (ITA)

For her neurotiypicals (people who, according to Oxford dictionary “do not have thoughts or behaviours typical of people with autism or other disorders) often interact in a weird way. Sometimes, thinking about the “unsaid” and all the complications that govern their social relationships, she sighs “poor NT”.

Poveri NT is an audio-documentary of Andrea Cocco and Cristina Magrini, with the voices of Donatella Franciosi, Matteo Capponi, Elena Tomei, Martina Maugeri, Marco Sinitti, Giovanni Grossi, Marzia Coronati, Marco Stefanelli.

L'articolo Poveri NT: Aspiradio project lands in Switzerland proviene da Echis.

From 15th of May 2017, Echis joined the Service Civil International project “A Route To Connect”, a three weeks long journey along the countries of the Balkan route. The aim of the project, funded by the Council of Europe, is to collect and disseminate information forging relationships with the people and organizations active in the defense of migrants’ rights.
The journey started in Slovenia and involved a group of 18 international volunteers. It continued through Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia all the way down to Greece and the island of Lesvos, to investigate the current conditions of migrants who still choose to reach Europe through the Eastern Mediterranean route.
Smuggling Poetry is a collection of audio fragments: poetry, stories, songs to bring a message in the places where migrants, blocked by the closed borders, can not arrive. Waiting for the day in which people will be able to travel, we make their poems fly.

Smuggling Poetry #1 We are on the balkan route, in one of the so called jungles, those border places where a lot of things happen without anyone noticing.

Smuggling Poetry #2 We are still in the Serbian jungle, on the border with Croatia. Here is another audio piece recorded after a pizza and music pic-nic.

Smuggling Poetry #3 From Lesvos’ shores, looking at Turkey, this time we let a song travel. The voice is Rania’s, an eleven years old Iraqi girl, who left Mosul with her twin sister and her dad.

Smuggling Poetry #4 We are close to Thessaloniki, inside Veria refugee camp. Alahddin gives us a message that is a question, while people outside celebrate, dancing dabka, because two boys have finally been relocated.

L'articolo Smuggling Poetry – Poetry From the Balkan Route proviene da Echis.

In peul they say “you are mad like a cow”, in Mexico “you are mad like a goat”; in Ecuador they ask “Did you slip a bolt?”, in bambarà the question is “what is in your head?”.
This investigation about madness was realized in Rome by people coming from different countries and cultures. It is the result of the workshop made by Echis at Casa Scalabrini 634 and inside Radio on the move studios.

(ITA)

L'articolo All the Ways to Say “Madness” proviene da Echis.

Geography of the Little Finger is an audio-documentary on the move. It was produced by Andrea Cocco and Echis for Radio Svizzera Italiana, crossing paths and all kinds of maps.

What does it mean to be an explorer today? What is there yet to be discovered on a constantly monitored planet?
To find it out, Andrea Cocco turned on his recorder and hit the road to follow geographers and contemporary explorers footsteps.

To listen to Geography of the Little Finger (in Ita) click here.

L'articolo Geography of the Little Finger proviene da Echis.

Pelè, Dakar and the feint is an audio-documentary realized by Andrea Cocco in partnership with Echis, for Radio Svizzera Italiana. Generated by a journey in Senegal, through its myths and stories, it narrates the memories of those who remember that time, in 1996 in Dakar, when they saw Pelè playing a match against the Senegalese national team.

Every day, from 4pm, the beaches, long stripes of sand surrounding Dakar, turns into an endless soccer field. The space is enormous but the fields are so close to each other it can happen that two goalkeepers, from two different games, share the same goal post.

To listen Pelé, Dakar and the feint (in ita) CLICK HERE

The Italian voices are Marco Stefanelli, Marcello Anselmo, Fabio Colaneri, Ciro Colonna and Nerina Schiavo.
A special thanks to Graphoui, Ebe Giovannini and Lamine Touré.

L'articolo Pelé, Dakar and the Feint proviene da Echis.

Subax Wanaagsan Soomaaliyeey, Good morning Somalia, is a radio programme for the Somali communities based in Italy and the rest of the world. The first episode was realized together with Radio Wanla Weyne, and broadcasted from the city in the South of Somalia with the same name. Mostafa Hashem, Somali journalist and creator of the programme, lives in Italy where he obtained the refugee status. In this first episode he interviews Abdul Karim Hassan Adan, a salesman from Mogadisciu, and Ismail Mohamud Isaag Mire, radio journalist of Wanla Weyne. They talk about the consequences of drought and climate changes on Somalia.

The first episode of Good morning Somalia is part of a series that focuses on the importance of communication as a development tool. It was produced by Mostafa Hashem and Echis with the support of the World association of Community Radios (AMARC) and the United Nations Food and Agricolture Organization (FAO).

Dhageyso hordhaca Barnaamijka – First Episode of Subax Wanaagsan Soomaaliyeey (SOM)

Ku Soo Dhawow Hordhaca Xafladii Soo Dhaweynta Ee Farmajo – Second Episode (SOM)

Kus dhawaada bardhaamijka subax wanaagsan somali, kaasoo loogu talagalay bulshada soomaaliyeed ee ku sugan dalka talyaaniga iyo aduunka dacaladeeda. Barnaamijkaan waxaa soo saaridiisa hergaliyay soo saaraha barnaamijka Mostafa Hashem oo ay kala dhexeeyso wada shaqeyn Radio Wanla Weyn, waxayna oo ku yaala koonfurta soomaaliya. Mostafa Hashem waa wariye qoxooti ku ah Talyaaniga  sanado ku nool Dalkaasi. Barnaamijkaan waxaa lagu wareeysan doonaa Abdul karim Hassan Aadan oo ah ganacsade beeraley dagan Muqdisho iyo Ismaail Mohanud Isaag Mire oo ah agaasimaha Idaacada Radio Wanla Weyn.

Waxa ayna sharaxaad kaga bixin doonaan xaalada abaar iyo mida cimilo ee ka jirta Dalka Soomaaliya .

L'articolo Subax Wanaagsan Somali – Goodmorning Somalia proviene da Echis.

This is a radio-workshop from the future. Yes, we are still working on it, but it’s taking place in a dimension where different languages and cultures mix constantly, playing with sounds, music and personal stories.

Promoted by the missionaries of Casa Scalabrini 634, a group hosting young people and refugee families, through  the workshop we are training the future speakers of the web Radio On The Move, born inside Casa Scalabrini 634.
Beside live broadcasts preparation and technical training, the workshop carried out an audio investigation on derangement: who is considered insane in Sub-saharan Africa? How do they relate to crazy people in America Latina? What happened to the asylums operating in many Italian cities until few decades ago?

Workshop productions:
–Radio On The Move
–All The Ways To Say “Madness”

L'articolo Casa Scalabrini 634 – Web Radio Workshop proviene da Echis.

In the winter of 2016/2017 Echis worked together with Medici per i Diritti umani (Doctors for Human Rights) for the project Terragiusta. The project intent was to offer health assistance and legal support to seasonal migrant workers employed during the harvest of oranges in Piana di Gioia Tauro area (Calabria, Italy). Interviewing landowners, seasonal workers, cooperatives and mayors, Echis tries to piece together this fragments to create an actual picture of the exploitment industry that every year casts a shadow on the harvest of oranges in Calabria.

In the audio-map you find below, we tell this story, bringing you in the places where the harvest happens, in the fields among the rows loaded with juicy fruits and inside the ghettos where farm workers rest at the end of every work-day. You can find the english transcript (in .pdf) below each chapter.

Terragiusta is a project of  Medici per i Diritti Umani (Doctors for Human rights) in partnership with Rosarno’s Municipality, ASP of Reggio Calabria, Flai-Cgil Piana di Gioia Tauro, ARCI Iqbal Masih, #FilieraSporca Campaign (daSud, Terra! Onlus, Terrelibere.org), Zalab, Amisnet, Echis.

Terragiusta won the first prize of the Media Migration Award 2017 Online Category.

L'articolo Terragiusta – An audio journey among Rosarno’s Gardens proviene da Echis.

During 2015 around 2.000.000 people crossed Turkey and the Mediterranean sea to ask for asylum in Europe, they were 220.000 the previous year.
They are people whose faces are shown on the news at dinner time, whose stories are told in the newspapers, whose changing fortunes are visible on the streets of our cities, in the Bengali food shops or in the ebony street vendors stalls.
Human beings to whom we too often attach discriminatory labels, depending on our political belief: migrants, refugees, displaced, clandestine people.
However, how many times did we stop, even just for few moments, to talk with them, new citizens we share a social and daily space with?

ClanDESTINI was born from this consideration. It is an audio-documentation work that began in Rome in 2014, it aims to raise awareness on the migration issue and to tease the dormant curiosity of all  citizens towards what they do not know, towards the “other”.
A project that asks for an open and interested mind, for a listening attitude, in contraposition to our chaotic, frenzy, contemporary atmosphere.

The project evolved in three phases: at first, we placed mailboxes around Rome’s neighbourhoods, where anyone could mail their questions to migrants arrived in Italy.
These questions then were selected and sent to citizens of foreign origin.
Eventually, once edited, the answers became part of the installation “ClanDESTINI”.
The mannequins of ClanDESTINI are the custodians of those answers.
When you crossed path with them, all you had to do is to ask for their stories, get closer, choose your question and wear the headphones to listen to their answers.
In conclusion, a collection of video stories of some of the ClanDESTINI protagonists, finalised the experience.

ClanDESTINI is a project created by Amisnet radio agency and continued by Echis, produced by Marco Stefanelli and Valentina Vivona and partly funded by Terra di Tutti Film Festival.

Q.: Was there a meeting that changed the fate of your journey?

L'articolo ClanDESTINI – Interactive Sound Installation proviene da Echis.

The enchanting hills of Thrace (Trakia), the super modern barbed wired Granitza, the high tech control towers that dominate on the landscape… Go for Granitza is an audio guided visit along Bulgarian borders. From the southern border with Turkey, up to the mountain range that divides Bulgaria from Serbia, 12 people at a time will be guided along a path that tries to touch the key points of the migration issue in Bulgaria, Europe’s southern door.

The sounds, testimonies and stories collected by Echis in February 2016 will accompany the group on this less known piece of the so called Balkan route.

A part of the interviews was published in the interactive map Across the Sea.

Thomas Story:

L'articolo Go For Granitsa – Audio Guide from Bulgarian Borders proviene da Echis.

“The first big drum is the Earth: we walk on it and it resounds with our life and energy. The second drum is our body: we can make it play clapping our hands and beating our body parts. The third drum is the one we play. Or rather, the one we build ourselves. Playing it means to give voice to our soul and to the world’s soul”.

Bear Heart, Native American

The Third Drum – a new rithm for debate is the radio programme of Confronti magazine, produced in partnership with Echis and by Marzia Coronati and Claudio Paravati. Its aim is to debate about pluralism, ethics and secularity, giving voice to young people living in Italy, through street recordings and studio interviews.

Is the secular nature of the Italian state respected? Is the freedom of religion, whichever it might be, protected in Italy? How do people experience their faith in their working places, in schools, in detention centres? Confronti editorial staff spoke about it with girls and boys, pundits and scholars, over five 30 minutes-long episodes, rich of thoughts, words and music to talk about a changing society with its new paradigms and contradictions.

The Third Drum was broadcasted on Radio Beckwith Evangelica (87.80 and 96.55 FM in Torino and Cuneo provinces) and in streaming on www.rbe.it from May 4 2017.
To listen to The Third Drum podcast (in ITA) click here.

Trailer:

L'articolo The Third Drum – A Radio Broadcast on Religion, Ethics and Secularity proviene da Echis.

Aspiradio is an audio auto-biographical workshop directed at people with Asperger syndrome, realized between March and November 2016 by AMISnet in partnership with Gruppo Asperger Lazio, Aspergerpride, Radio Beckwith and Echis, with the support of Otto Per Mille della Chiesa Valdese.
In 12 meetings we explored the subject of passion in its different aspects: love, relationships, interests of the young participants.
It was a way of telling about themselves and to talk about the autistic spectrum, the neuro-diversity that exists hidden in our society. It was, also, a collective investigation that brought the participants to meet -amongst the other- : a manager who decided to ban slot machines from his bar, a couple from Bangladesh who got married thanks to social networks, a retired Italian teacher who does not shy away from telling what love is for her.
Aspieradio allowed the realization of other activities as well, among which: media monitoring on the themes of autism and Asperger syndrome; a series of information meetings in the schools; setting up of a radio mobile studio at MAXXI during the As Film Festival.

Neurodiversity and Passion (ITA):

L'articolo Aspiradio – Workshop on autism proviene da Echis.

Echis – Incroci di suoni is an association based in Rome. Born from journalists and editors with a background in radio and audio, Echis realizes projects in support of information and communication access, produces broadcasts and audio-documentaries, organizes radio workshops aimed at informing and facilitating the access to media. Echis also promotes events and live listening happenings.

Andrea Cocco
For over ten years in the radio business, Andrea Cocco realizes programmes and audio-documentaries. He cooperates with other broadcasters like Italian Swiss Radio, and organizes workshops aimed at the creation of radio productions following a participatory approach. He worked in Palestine, Tunisia and several other countries managing radio cooperation projects for Amisnet radio agency.

Marzia Coronati
Marzia Coronati was born in Rome in 1982. She is an editor and audio-documentarist, from 2005 she realizes radio productions. She has been part of Amisnet radio agency for ten years, realizing a programme focused on migration issues and then another one about environment and sustainable alternatives. She produces audio-documentaries for Swiss Italian Radio and Radio Rai Tre. She is a member of Audiodoc association.

Marco Stefanelli
Marco Stefanelli lives and works in Rome on social reportages and audio experimentations. His passion is to manipulate sounds and noises to tell about the reality through its audio de-construction and re-construction. He began to work in the radio thanks to Radio Ghetto and Amisnet experiences. For Amisnet he realized story-telling workshops and training courses in Italy and Palestine.

Nerina Schiavo
Nerina Schiavo lives and works in Rome. After graduating in International Relations she had several experiences in Middle East countries and in the migration field. She arrived at Echis after six months spent in Turkey, where she did research about the Eastern Mediterranean migration route. At Echis she cooperates at the radio productions, in the radio workshops and fund-raising activities.

L'articolo About us proviene da Echis.

Echis promotes listening education through public events: sharing listening experiences lying on carpets made of pillows or in a dark room, in a theatre or in a courtyard. Through live happenings or using recorded audio material, Echis events aim at awaken the five senses starting from the hearing. Listen to see farther, to taste deeper, to touch, to feel atmospheres until we can imagine the smells. Listen to the outside in order to listen to our inner selves.

L'articolo Events proviene da Echis.

Echis realizes projects to promote independent information and the right to communicate. Through our activity we want to allow and increase the access to communication, especially of the outcast communities. In particular, the association offers its technical skills (creating radios and studios) and its competences through trainings and collective productions.

L'articolo Projects proviene da Echis.

Reportage, stories, soundwalks, broadcasts, audio installations, postcards and soundscapes. Our documentaries and productions are the result of precise choices: sound distillates, interviews, music and stories.We want to collect and tell stories, follow memory’s routes in order to take back our present, lift the carpets to discover the realities hidden underneath and then give back to the listeners the words and the results of our encounters and investigations.
Make yourselves comfortable and start listening to our many productions.

Documentaries

Soundwalks

Radio Broadcasts

Audio Installations

L'articolo Productions proviene da Echis.

Echis works together with:

Radio
    

Associations

Media

L'articolo Partners proviene da Echis.

L'articolo Workshops proviene da Echis.