Episodes
| Series | Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sight-reading | 20231130 | In a series of instructions, speculative directions and personal knowledges – overlapping images composed of old light – we encounter a choreography of gestures that house the incalculable forms of our living. How are we displaced from what we see? And what kind of unstable authority do we wield over a world constantly evading our grasp? Naarm/Melbourne-based Jon Tjhia is an artist, writer and editor working through radio and podcast, temporary broadcast, literature, photomedia, intersensory access, music and publishing. His recent work is published or commissioned by Debris Magazine, Chunky Move, Liquid Architecture, Un Magazine, LIMINAL, Weird Noise, the Powerhouse Museum, the Barbican, Avantwhatever and WFMU. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Three | |||
| IMAGES | 01 | Creation Of The Birds | 20210913 | 20230828 (R3) | Creation of the Birds is a tone poem, composed and produced by Sami El-Enany, based on the painting by Remedios Varo of the same name. Varo's painting depicts an anthropomorphic owl sitting at a desk drawing a series of birds with a musical brush. After being drawn, the birds are imbued with starlight refracted from a magnifying lens and come to life. A look at the private life of an artist, the origins of inspiration, and an ode to the personalities of beautiful birds and the landscapes they inhabit. This fantastical exploration of the metamorphosis from an abstract idea to a finished artwork is in three movements - The Skylark, The Oystercatcher and The Blackbird. Owlman performed by Joe Winnsmith String necklace performed by David Denyer Birdsong performed by Jessica Winter Sami El-Enany's part tone poem, part narrative reimagining of Remedios Varo's painting. |
| IMAGES | 02 | To Have-to Hold | 20210914 | 20230829 (R3) | Five audio-makers from around the world take over The Essay to offer a series of Radio 3's innovative Between the Ears features in miniature. Each edition takes an image as its starting point - from an audio-maker who finds herself caught in a news image to a painting come to life. In To Have/To Hold, Aliya Pabani pieces together fragmentary memories of a protest from the news images taken that day. Standing trying to hold a line around a homeless encampment in Toronto, photo journalists are drawn to her striking red coat amidst a sea of police. One photo in particular, an image from Al Jazeera, catches her eye. As she faces a line of cops, a woman she doesn't know embraces her from behind with the appearance of tender stillness. A look at the multitude of stories a news image can tell and how far they can go to capture reality. Sound designed by Jesse Perlstein Produced by Aliya Pabani Aliya Pabani pieces together fragmentary memories of a protest in Toronto. |
| IMAGES | 03 | The Last Road Trip | 20210915 | 20230830 (R3) | Five audio-makers from around the world take over The Essay to offer a series of Radio 3's innovative Between the Ears features in miniature. Each edition of takes an image as its starting point - from a radio producer who finds herself caught in a news image to a painting come to life. In this edition, Australian documentary maker Mike Williams revisits the scene of a family photo on a road trip to visit a famous outback pub. An unexpected obstacle forces him to contemplate the future. Produced by Mike Williams Mike Williams revisits the scene of a family photo on a road trip to visit an outback pub. |
| IMAGES | 04 | Neptune's New Dark Moon | 20210916 | 20230831 (R3) | Tonight, the audio artist Fallon Mayanja explores the idea of words as corpses, or shells, as she brings a photograph of crashing waves to life. Produced by Fallon Mayanja Audio artist Fallon Mayanja explores the idea of words as corpses. |
| IMAGES | 05 LAST | Chromophonia | 20210917 | 20230901 (R3) | Chromophonia explores colour for the ears, through the eyes of two colour experts. Cheryl Porter is a books and paper conservator, specialising in medieval manuscripts and methods of creating and preserving pigments. David Batchelor is a contemporary artist and writer who works with and writes about colour. Through the colours black, yellow and blue, we hear physical processes and personal reflections. How is colour created, and how can it be used? And how does it feel to spend a career working with colour? Produced by Calum Perrin |
| SENSES | 01 | Smell (smelling) | 20231127 | Producer Neena Pathak has been conducting a smell experiment with her dad, Jitendra. As his health declines, she prompts him with different smells that yield a flood of memories from years ago to more recent. You'll hear a journey through past and present that shows one way to mourn and celebrate someone still living. Neena Pathak is a writer, producer and editor whose work has appeared in podcasts like Invisibilia, The Daily, This American Life, Still Processing, and Another Round. Her work has been honoured by the Pulitzer Prize Board, National Press Foundation, Asian American Journalists Association, Hearsay International Audio Festival, and Third Coast International Audio Festival. Sound Designer: Chloe Prasinos Editor: Eleanor McDowall Special thanks to: Schuyler Swenson, Joanna Leigh Simon, Stella Tan, Eleanor Kagan, Michael Simon Johnson, Sangeeta and Vilas Mandlekar, Uma Pathak, and the Monson Arts Residency. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Three | |
| SENSES | 02 | Taste (how To Be Cool) | 20231128 | How To Be Cool is artist/composer Max Syedtollan's surreal and irreverent take on the self-help genre. He narrates a guided hypnosis tape that promises to make the listener cool – but there are sinister motives lurking beneath the surface in this musical and comedic journey through the absurdities of social mores. Glasgow-based Max Syedtollan works across music, text and performance. He is particularly interested in radiophonic composition and is undertaking a PhD on its history and practice. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Three | |
| SENSES | 03 | Hidden Touch | 20231129 | Hidden Touch - written, composed and narrated by Suvi Tuuli Kataja, Elli Salo - explores the rituals and culture of death through everyday and mythical traditions. The audio work follows Laru Yliskoski, an undertaker, on the last journey of the deceased and shows how the dead are cared for after death. ?Relatives often want to put something in the coffin. It can be anything. An unfinished cross. Liquorice pastilles in the breast pocket. Children's drawings. ? Hydrophone artist, music: Jussi Liukkonen Suvi Tuuli Kataja is a director, screenwriter and sound designer whose work has been acclaimed at international festivals, including Prix Europa, BANFF World Media Festival and at home in Finland. Elli Salo is a playwright and dramaturg. She has worked in a variety of roles in radio and sound, theatre, literature and film and her work has been translated into several languages and received awards in Finland and abroad. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Three | |
| SENSES | 04 | Sight | 20231130 | In On Not Knowing, Emily Ogden writes: 'When I ask people to look at things I am really asking them to look at me, a delicate thing to ask.' In this radio work, which records a series of (sometimes speculative) directions unfolding in parallel, Jon Tjhia delegates his attention to others. What can you show me, and what will you reveal? Dwelling with the unstable authority of instructions, directions, personal knowledges – the things we hold for our own living – this episode registers a choreography of gestures that house the incalculable forms of our living. Naarm/Melbourne-based Jon Tjhia is an artist, writer and editor working through radio and podcast, temporary broadcast, literature, photomedia, intersensory access, music and publishing. His recent work is published or commissioned by Debris Magazine, Chunky Move, Liquid Architecture, Un Magazine, LIMINAL, Weird Noise, the Powerhouse Museum, the Barbican, Avantwhatever and WFMU. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Three | |
| SENSES | 05 LAST | Sound | 20231201 | How does one live with a difficult diagnosis that offers glimmers of hope, but that also emerges from pathologising histories? This feature by London-based Tej Adeleye is a neuromantic quest through the psyche to come to terms with neurodivergence, unearthing buried signals that call for a rewiring of values in relation to self, health and society. Delving into the sound of bad crip feelings, this piece tunes into the register of crip negativity to find anti-ableist horizons both internally and in the outside world. (Featuring an original composition by Matana Roberts.) Tej Adeleye is a writer, audio producer and arts programmer. Her arts practice focuses on the connections between past and present black political struggles using multidisciplinary activations, popular education and archives. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Three Featuring Faith Becky Oyeri, Jeanet Oyeri Fru from the Justice for Emmanuel Fru Campaign, Wemimo Aliyu, Micha Frazer Carroll, author of 'MAD WORLD: the politics of mental health', J. Logan Smilges author of Crip Negativity and Robert Chapman, author of Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism Original composition, “Phases ?, by the composer and artist Matana Roberts. | |
| TAROT | 01 | Khangela | 20221114 | Researchers Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle have spent the last year piecing together the story of one woman's decades-long search to find the remains of her father, a South African political activist who died in 1966. In between visiting old prisons and sifting through archival collections, Bongani begins dreaming about the ghost of his own father, a man he's never met. The quest to uncover the meaning behind these recurring dreams leads to Julia, a spirit medium and healer, who practices one of the oldest forms of divination on the planet - `throwing the bones`. In consultation with ancestral and spirit worlds, Julia deciphers `energy fields within one's psyche, spirit and soul body.` This is all to bring solace to troubled souls and minds; to `these soft houses in which we live`, as Kei Miller writes, `and in which we move and from which we can never migrate, except by dying.` Khangela, in isiXhosa, is to look, or to search. Khangela forms part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. The card at the heart of Khangela is The High Priestess. Bongani Kona is a writer, and a lecturer in the department of history at the University of the Western Cape. Catherine Boulle is an audio maker and writer, currently based at the University of Cape Town. Together, Catherine and Bongani won the 2021 Whickers Radio & Audio Funding Award for their documentary about South Africa's Missing Persons Task Team, and the case of James Booi. Produced by Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle | |
| TAROT | 02 | The House In A House | 20221115 | Marta Medveek explores a local legend she encounters on her summer vacation in Bol, Croatia - the story of the House in a House. A magical place where imagination meets reality, and fate-possibility. The House in a House forms part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. The card at the heart of The House in a House is The Tower. Marta Medveek is a Croatian audio producer with a soft spot for helping stories cross language borders. She's produced work for BBC Radio 4's Short Cuts, Resonance FM, The Allusionist, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and BBC World Service. Since winning the Best European Radio Documentary prize at the 2021 Prix Europa, her piece `Fly or Die` has already traveled to Germany, Sweden, Lithuania, Belgium and Italy. Featuring Ivica Jaki? ?okri? Puko and Mario Borov?i? Kurir Music by Kevin Kopacka Produced by Marta Medveek | |
| TAROT | 03 | Feeling Body | 20221116 | feeling body is part of a series of pieces reflecting on the physical and psychological experiences during and after an extended period of illness (long-COVID). The work draws on multiple symbolisms, from The Nine of Swords in the Minor Arcana, to the undercurrent of water, where long baths were a point of solace during the experience of debilitating symptoms. Interspersed with perspectives of internal and external interactions, voiced by the composer in multiple ways as well as a by Kiswahili text-to-speech voice, and with additional sounds from performers Yaz Lancaster (voice, violin) & Michael O'Callaghan (trumpet), the piece blurs the lines between a perspective from the time of illness and one in retrospect, underlining an inevitable consequence of illness: how it arrests, irreversibly, one's awareness of their living body. feeling body forms part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. Nyokabi Kari?ki is a Kenyan composer and sound artist. Illuminated by musical sensibilities from her African upbringing, Nyokabi shares a unique artistic voice spanning across various genres from classical contemporary to sound art, film, and explorations into (East) African musical traditions. Her works have been experienced in various contexts around the world, from audio art festivals (including the Hearsay International Audio Festival, where she received the 2021 Hearsay Art' Award), to performances by acclaimed ensembles like Third Coast Percussion and Cello Octet Amsterdam. Produced and composed by Nyokabi Kari?ki | |
| TAROT | 04 | Beyond The Box | 20221117 | Filling out a form, Mido is confronted with a series of boxes to tick. Two familiar boxes emerge from the crowd and stand side by side. One says Male'. The other says Female'. Beyond the Box is an intimate and inquisitive immersion into the nature of these boxes and what life is like living beyond them. Developed through a series of facilitated workshops, producer Christina Hardinge invites friend Mido to explore their personal lived experience of being put in a box'. By integrating the therapeutic tools of visualisation and guided imagery with interview, together they imagine new ways of framing this conversation. Christina Hardinge is a Bristol based audio producer and multi-disciplinary artist working creatively in the field of documentary. She has over 10 years experience of telling intimate personal stories rooted in interview; spanning across the mediums of audio, film, theatre and immersive installation. Winner of the Charles Parker Radio Prize and nominee for Prix Europa's Rising Star audio award, her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Short Cuts and exhibited at international festivals. Beyond the Box forms part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. The card at the heart of Beyond the Box is the Death card. Produced by Christina Hardinge Co-created by: Mido | |
| TAROT | 05 LAST | The Beach | 20221118 | In this piece, the fool stands at the edge of the cliff, looking up at the sky. She asks herself, `How did I get here?` And also, `Where am I meant to go?` Part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. The card at the heart of this edition is The Fool. Featuring: Briana Gutierrez Additional voices: Kate Bowen, Cristina Umaကa Durကn, Hannah Patterson, Ruoyi Shi, Sofija Stefanovic, and Canelo Joaquin Produced by Phoebe Wang |