~ The role of sound and radio in mobilising local communities in times of adversity ~

Community radios play a crucial role in times of crisis, serving as platforms for information, solidarity, and collective action. Kyiv-based 20ft Radio launched the Grains of Peace initiative at the beginning of the full scale invasion of Ukraine, providing a "recreational zone and sound oasis" to help restore emotional well being and support communities affected by war. The initiative emphasises music as an instrument of rebuilding, countering fear and anxiety while fostering hope and resilience.

In Georgia, Mutant Radio played an active role during the 2023, 2024, and ongoing protests in the country, mobilising its community by sharing information, calling for action, and raising awareness on an international scale. These examples raise the question of the role of sound in mobilising local communities in times of crisis.

How can online community radios serve as a catalyst for collective action? And to what extent can sound be a participation tool for citizens and artists willing to reimagine and reclaim physical and online spaces?

This discussion is powered by the Reset! network and is part of Reset! Yearly Focus, "Reclaiming Spaces"

Is there still room for improvisation, play and collective action and imagination in the neoliberal city of today? Despite political polarization, privatization and precarity, there are many initiatives that propose alternative urban scores, that deviate from dominant narratives, and that invite citizens to imagine the city otherwise. Self-organized practices and collectives activate vacant lots and in-between spaces for communal use, and reconfigure spaces for new urban encounters and forms of play. While highlighting the histories, present conditions, and possible futures of these spaces.

Together with Evan Kelly (Rupture Cinema) and Gav Fahy (1815fc), the conversation will explore questions of self-organization, spatial tactics, and collective action, and the importance of reimagining today’s cityscapes. The conversation will be moderated by Katía Truijen (Loom/Rewire).

This session will focus on three city-based art spaces which have activated vacant space to foster collective creative practices and innovative community approaches. Speakers from BASE (Dublin City), Unit 44 (Dublin City) and Test Site (Cork City) will make short presentations on their respective spaces, how they came about and how they were activated.

While overlapping, these spaces emerge from distinct artistic disciplines but they all represent the usefulness to a city centre of having sites for sonic, artistic and architectural coming together.

Tadhg Kinsella’s “Sonotecture Memos” is a city-responsive sound walk/installation, tracing the entangled resonances of sound, architecture, and daily life in Dublin City. The installation will guide listeners from FLUX to The Complex, with the city streets acting as an exhibition space itself.

“Sonotecture (Sonic architecture) Memos” relating to the digital notes kept by Kinsella walking around the city while working on this installation. A sonic response to the “lust or dust” relationship the city’s architecture holds and how artists adapt to deal with this.

Through digital and acoustic technologies Kinsella creates a collage of field recordings, archival fragments, and electronic gestures. Sonically exploring how informal DIY creativity and activity shapes the artistic identity of the city. Inviting listeners to hear Dublin not as a static backdrop, but as an evolving living community in a resonant structure; scored daily by bodies, voices, and collective actions.

Meet up at Flux Studios Courtyard ~ Soundwalk