The Soundseekers Audio Festival

18 Feb 2022

The Soundseekers Audio Festival is delighted to announce its first-ever broadcasting launch from the 21st of February until the 21st of March 2022. In partnership with a network of 18 community radio stations across Ireland, Refugee, Asylum & Migrant communities, The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), the Irish Research Council, and University College Cork.

The Soundseekers Audio Festival will officially have its broadcast launch on Monday 21st February on UCC 98.3 FM @5pm in University College Cork as part of UCC’s Refugee Week 2022. UCC 98.3 FM will continue to play Soundseekers programming from 5 pm each day until Thursday 24th February and will continue to broadcast until the 21st March.

The festival involved creating a platform for creative expression and working with asylum-seeking communities in Europe in Digital and Community Radio Broadcasting Skills over a two year period. The fruits of which have culminated into a body of creative multimedia and FM broadcasting works.

To celebrate audio and cultural diversity, the festival will showcase over 30 documentaries (200 minutes) created and produced by Refugee, Asylum and Migrant communities seeking refuge in Europe. Program themes include identity, memory, faith, mental health, social justice, LGBTQ, gender violence, environment, global displacement & borders, and unaccompanied minors. A variety of creative approaches are used to tell these important stories such as poetry, story-telling and documentation. 

We invite Irish audiences to tune into their local community radio station in Ireland for FM broadcast or visit your local community radio stations’ Facebook and Twitter accounts for online listening.  We also invite international audiences to listen through Irish community radio stations online, the thesoundseekers.com website and Youtube @TheSoundseekers.

The festival aims to engage audiences and raise awareness around global issues on the local, national and international front concerning the complexities of seeking asylum in Europe.

Other Broadcasting partners include UCC 98.3FM, Dublin City FM, Dundalk FM, Athlone Community Radio, 92.5 Phoenix FM, Erris FM, Claremorris Community Radio, CRY FM, Flirt FM, 

Connemara Community Radio, Wired FM, Liffey Sound 96.4FM, Tipperary Mid West Radio, Near 90FM, Community Radio Castlebar, Cork New Life Media,

Dundalk FM, Liffey Sound 96.4 FM, Dublin South FM, West Limerick 102FM  

The Soundseekers Audio Festival is part of a PhD research project which is ethically approved by University College Cork. It centres around creating and utilizing community media and social media platforms for under-represented voices and seeks to contribute towards changing the negative mainstream narrative around those that seek asylum in Ireland and Europe by creating alternative narratives. Upon completion, producers who participated in the training program received Digital Badge accreditation from University College Cork. Imagery available on request.

Festival Coordinator:

Kathy O’Hare
globalsoundseekers@gmail.com
thesoundseekers.com
Twitter: @TheSoundseekers
Youtube: @TheSoundseekers
Facebook: @Atthesoundseekers