Allumuah [Pronounced: ‘A-Loom-Wah’] is a short film by Curtis Essel that explores the path of intersectional/generational relationships which vividly depicts the beauty in culture and the characters within it.
A tribute by the director to his late grandmother, in his own words: “A love letter to himself and for anyone on the path of re-discovery of self.”
Five radio producers from around the world hijack The Essay to offer a series of Radio 3’s innovative Between the Ears features in miniature, in response to Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’.
In this edition, Axel Kacoutié offers a story about a man’s journey home, which interweaves with the discovery of a lesser-known truth about hope.
Gold for the Sarah Lawrence Audio Fiction Awards.
Judges comments:
This piece broke the judges to tears – with its subtle sound design that make you feel the vibration of the trains, and the tunnels that comes and goes and pushes the mind of the listeners into this world of metaphors that transforms you; with its rhythmisation of expansion and closeness. Paradise shows what you can expect from audio fiction; that you can experience the world as if for the first time.
We are wrong to look for uniformity and objectivity. We have all mapped associations to what our subjective experience is like.
My experience of the colour red is different from yours. Our brains light up the same way when hearing water but our relationship to its sounds will never be the same.
Because of this, I wanted to illustrate how I’ve mapped mine using abstract terms like solitude, sunbathing, patricide etc. All as an attempt to say, “you don’t have to understand, I just want to connect and have you see (listen) how I relate to the world.”
Designed to listen to audio from around the world and explore ideas of intimacy and distance, the Soundhouse ‘listening rooms’ was curated by audio artists, Ariana Martinez, Axel Kacoutié and Arlie Adlington.
Soundhouse: Intimacy and Distance took place from 28 October 2020 until 28 February 2021
Room One – “Art isn’t made to experience only once…this curation is an invitation to pause.”
Soundhouse is a platform for creative radio and podcasting, and a space for reflections on audio culture.
In 2018 it took the form of a pop-up venue at the Barbican, with a focus on communal listening and experimental events in a sensory environment for sound. This year, Soundhouse exists here online, and we explore ideas of Intimacy and Distance through three ‘listening rooms’, and four specially commissioned pieces of writing.
Co-creators Eleanor McDowall and Nina Garthwaite write here about why this theme felt apt for the ‘socially distanced world’ many of us are living in, and how ideas of intimacy and distance have always been intertwined with the way we experience radio.
A “pitch-perfect debut” about the rediscovery of who Axel is.
This production also earned him a Silver in the 2019 Audio Production Awards for Best New Producer.
Best Documentary at the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
Best New Producer 2019 Audio Production Awards 2019 (Silver)