Shelby x Reel Rebels Radio

Zine

Jul 20

Sound + Visual Art Activism

THE PERFECT PARTNERSHIP

In 2021, I reconnected with Alicia Graham - co-founder of Reel Rebels Radio. We had previously met in connection with Hackney Community Defence Association (HCDA), when I was just a child, drawing in the corner of meetings at the Colin Roach Centre in Dalston (where HCDA was based).

Our connection felt immediate and as we started speaking about our community arts work and the ambitions we had, the many parallels become more apparent.

Naturally, collaborative opportunities began to arise. Alicia was running events in the radio station space in Stoke Newington, London, and was looking for more artists to get involved. Shelby x Studios has worked with a lot of artists! We were posing the questions ‘What happens when you host an exhibition in a radio station?’, ‘How can multimedia art make community issues more accessible?’ and ‘How do our rebel roots connect us and the wider community?’ The format of the two events we went on to co-produce, Rebel Roots I and II, was something I had dreamt of; space to exhibit work by Black, LGBTQ+, disabled and working-class artists, panel discussions with an intimate live audience, delicious food and live music everyone could dance and connect to. Plus, it was all recorded, so that people could go on to access the content in accessible ways.

REBEL ROOTS I: A Sound + Visual Art Publication

REBEL ROOTS II: A Sound + Visual Art Publication

Testing the basis of the friendship circles at our Rebel Roots event.

Examples of how the friendship circles work photographed at Rebel Roots.

An image showing how the 3D Caribbean family tree test canvas was made.

Piyagarn Odunukwe with the test version of the Caribbean family tree canvas.

AMPLIFIED PUBLISHING

Not long after Rebel Roots II, I was working on a publication for the Bristol + Bath Creative R+D programme Amplified Publishing showcase event and was keen to develop an audio element to enhance it’s accessibility. Alicia understood the vision perfectly and created a stand alone audio piece for people with visual impairments. It was important that this wasn’t just an audio description in a monotone voice, as is often the case, but instead an artwork within its own right. In addition, she created audio elements that made the publication itself more interactive, so that when you click on images within the pages, they play sounds. This became a prototype of the kind of publication we hope to continue making together.

Amplified Publishing Showcase:

HOPEFUL FUTURES

Having worked in London on the Bristol + Bath Creative R+D publication together, we finally made a visit to both Bristol + Bath for another collaborative project - Hopeful Futures. Hopeful Futures was a two-day event exploring the future of creative technology in the two cities. The event was run by Bristol + Bath Creative R+D; a £6.8 million, five-year long collaboration that aims to raise the bar for the region’s creative industries. The team was comprised of the universities of UWE Bristol, Bath, Bath Spa, and Bristol, and Bristol-based cultural organisation, Watershed. The two-day event brought a creative community together to answer the question: What's the future of creative tech for our cities? Our role was to engage attendees in the creation of a live publication documenting their responses through interactive art worksheets and mini audio interviews. Again, we were testing methods of recording live events and sharing the experience by combining sound and visual art in a digital publication.

Future Cities: Visions of 2030

BATH SPA UNIVERSITY PROJECT

At the end of 2022, I was commissioned to work on a publication for Bath Spa University, creating a legacy document for the graduates of 2022. As part of this project, Alicia did an honest and thought provoking online industry talk about her journey navigating the creative industries, an in-person workshop on campus and created a downloadable resource.

the fostering network
youth workshop

We recently ran a zine-making and postcasting workshop for The Fostering Network’s Mockingbird Nest, which nurtures the relationships between children, young people and foster families supporting them to build a resilient and caring community. We taught the young people how to make their own mini publications, recording snippets of audio for a podcast and ran a series of activities exploring the themes of joy, rest and love.