Diasporic Listening to Berlin's Soundscape

^{Category: radio art, composition, soundscape
Release: November 25, 2022
Curated by: Yara Mekawei
Partners: Cashmere Radio / FM 88.4 MHz Berlin / 90.7 Potsdam / Artist Pilots
Link: https://cashmereradio.com/episode/cashmere-specials-diasporic-listening-to-berlins-soundscape/}


This radio show is the result of a creative workshop in collaboration with Artist Pilots, where transnational artists participated in a collective listening to recorded Berlin soundscapes and engaged in a discussion about how experiences of migration inform the way we listen to the city. As a result of this exchange, together with the workshop’s facilitator – Yara Mekawei – the participants produced a collective work to be broadcasted on Cashmere Radio, FM 88.4 MHz Berlin, and 90.7 Potsdam. 

Artist Pilots supports transnational artists, media and cultural workers who have left their countries of origin for political reasons and are making a new start in Berlin.





















PLAYLIST


01
01:13 - 06:16
By the end of a Day by Abeer Ali


02
06:17 - 09:23
Rhododendron Hain by Anton Filatov


03
09:24 - 14:25
Böhmischer Platz by Alifiyah


04
14:26 - 20:31
La última hora del mercado by Falso Conejo:
Carla Abilés/Gustavo Obligado


05
20:32 - 25:45
Floating basin by Izul Kim



Notes on my piece “Böhmischer Platz”

You are listening to a sound walk that circles Böhmischer Platz in Rixdorf, Neukölln. Some claim that it serves as a reminder of Neukölln's roots, a Berlin district distinguished by having numerous distinct immigrant communities. I have been actively listening to this historic platz from where I newly reside and I find the sound sources in the platz to be fascinating. The platz still has a musical character of heritage, languages, community, and daily struggles despite being both commercial and pedestrian-friendly as well as gentrified over the years. As I am recording, I am drawn to these impressions of learning about its history: as an early settlement for Bohemian Protestant refugees (region based in present-day Czech Republic) who were fleeing from the authoritarian Roman Catholic rule and were accepted here in Rixdorf with the settlement originating in the first half of the eighteenth century. While listening, I am also reminded of my personal life around a new home. Seasonal shifts, variations in day and night, births, deaths, happy and sad times, moon phases, and listening to the relationships in between, connects me to my own mobility and migration past while I attune to the environment and my neighborhood.