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.

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.