Show up. Listen up. Get involved.
Amplify: Story, Resistance, Radio staging a gallery takeover that is part live ‘Pirate Radio’ performance, part futuring workshop, and part sound exhibition about the importance of amplification and listening in urban politics. Amplify is a living, breathing example of how stories occupy urban space and generate solidarity. It responds to long-standing calls to protect music and creative spaces in our cities, to create more diverse media landscapes and to champion First Nations music and journalism. This takeover invites people to share stories about sound and activism in the city through live radio broadcasts from the gallery and visual conversations covering key moments of amplification of the past, present and futures.
🎧 Listen to broadcasts, panel discussions and workshops here.
Thursday, 5th October 2023
5pm – 9pm — OPEN NIGHT: Performances
Join us for the Opening Night of the Tin Sheds take-over and wander through the Amplify: Story, Resistance, Radio space.
Join us for performances and wander through the futuring workshop and radio space.
– Nadeena Dixon
– Anomie
– Wicked Bandit
– Maya Gold
– MCs Jannah Beth and Natalie Slade
– Organarchy (++Sunnybins!)
…. all through the delicious Honeytrap Sound System
Register here for your FREE opening night tickets
FULL PIRATE RADIO SCHEDULE HERE
Saturday, 7th October 2023
10am – 11am — WORKSHOP: Pirate Radio for Kids
Register here for FREE tickets for kids and big kids
2SER community radio are helping young people take-over the pirate radio.
Bring your kids along to the Tin Sheds Gallery for a special kids activity in our pop-up pirate radio studio involving dress-ups and speaking like a pirate on air.
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12pm – 1pm — SCREENING: 88.9 Radio Redfern Documentary
Join us for the screening of this observational documentary looking at Sydney’s first community Aboriginal radio station, 88.9 Radio Redfern.
Set against a backdrop of contemporary Aboriginal music, 88.9 Radio Redfern offers a special and rare exploration of the people, attitudes and philosophies behind the lead up to a different type of celebration of Australia’s Bicentennial Year. Throughout 1988, 88.9 Radio Redfern became an important focal point for communication and solidarity within the Koori community. The film reveals how Aboriginal people are adapting social structures such as the mass media to serve their needs.
FREE registration for the event here
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1pm – 3pm — PANEL: Race & Diversity in the Media
Radio Skid Row take-over the panel discussion space for the afternoon.
Featuring: Luke Pearson a Gamilaroi man living in NSW. He is the founder and CEO of IndigenousX.
Radio Skid Row take-over the panel discussion space for the afternoon. Radio Skid Row broadcasters has invited Luke Pearson from Indigenous X and Barbara McGrady, a multi-award winning photographer, to watch the documentary Radio Redfern 88.9 and talk about what it means to be making radical media today. Also present on the panel will be founding members current Radio Skid Row board member and Radio Redfern broadcaster, Graham Davis King, Yarraka Bayles and others. MC for the day Radio Skid Row board member Binowee Bayles.
FREE registration for the event here
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11.55pm – 12.55am — PANEL: Radio and Mobilisation
This late night take-over panel examines the histories and possible futures of protest tactics involving creative uses of radio technology.
Zoom in to this chat here: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/84386944908
This remote panel asks, “How can radio be used to mobilise individuals in an effort to create political change?” To answer this, we tell stories about the ways that radio has and can continue to help us mobilise, protest, resist, and reclaim urban spaces. Speakers include Heather Contant (diffusionFM), Ed Bear (Exitrip and May Day Radio Occupy the Airwaves), Rory Solomon (The New School), and Ole Frahm (Ligna).
Thursday 12th October
The Weekly Dream Report
3-4pm Thursdays Oct 12, 19, 26, Nov 2, 9 and 16)
Share your dreams on the air! Join us at Tin Sheds Gallery every week to tell us about the dreams you have and have had during this informal and open-to-anyone programme. All dreams and dreamers are welcome.
Saturday, 14th October 2023
Register for this free event here!
12pm PANEL: Walking the Plank in the United States: Stories of Un/lawful Radio Transmission
Hosted by Heather Contant
This panel features stories of triumph and tribulation from the history of pirate radio in the United States. The speakers include Stephen Dunifer (aka the Johnny Appleseed” of free radio and founder of Free Radio Berkeley), Christina Dunbar-Hester (researcher in the democratic control of technologies), and David Goren (creator of the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map). By sharing their unique perspectives as leading pirate radio practitioners and researchers, this panel sheds light on the ongoing pursuits for free and open access to the airwaves–past, present, and into the future.
Join in the panel via zoom here: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/87645171122
1pm – PERFORMANCE: The Splinter Orchestra
Splinter is a radically inclusive large-scale improvising orchestra that has been a forum for listening and sounding together for well over 100 exploratory musicians and sound artists living in or passing through Sydney for 2 decades. Currently we have a diverse membership of roughly 25. Our process of co-creation and the resulting music is probably best left undefined — amorphous and ephemeral qualities being inherent to the project — but we can say that playing is the group’s fundamental activity. We meet weekly, with ever-fluctuating line-ups, to do just that. Much of our public work in the last few years has been an exploration of ‘choreographed’ play in vast spaces, particularly outdoors, including Mungo National Park, Bundanon and The Pilliga, where we listen, move, sound and record, (and then listen back to the inscribed phenomena on our apparatus). In recent years we’ve developed an interest in sound installations, consisting of self-playing instruments, interactive sound-sculptures, visual and text provocations, sound devices and more. The elements of these ‘Splintstallations’, just like the many voices of Splinter, work together, sometimes in parallel, sometimes intersecting.
“Every Splinter Orchestra performance unfolds a unique improvisational sonic ecology combining highly developed music skills with thoroughly experimental sound-making and an intuitive compositional repertoire built from years of collective engagement. The entire space becomes a stage for performers and audience alike to wander, carrying their generative or listening attentions amongst, between and through an evolving sonic unknown.” – Gary Warner, 2017
2pm WORKSHOP: Futuring Cultures of Listening and Protest Technologies in Climate Crisis
Hosted by Clare Cooper
Register for this free event here!
Tuesday, 17th October 2023
1:00pm – 2:00pm — SCREENING: 88.9 Radio Redfern Documentary
The Urban Crew take-over the workshop space for the afternoon.
Seth Dias talks about the 1988 Invasion Day rally ahead of the Urban Crew takeover of the gallery space to screen the 88.9 Radio Redfern documentary.
After a short introduction by Dallas Rogers, The Urban Crew is screening this observational documentary looking at Sydney’s first community Aboriginal radio station, 88.9 Radio Redfern. Set against a backdrop of contemporary Aboriginal music, 88.9 Radio Redfern offers a special and rare exploration of the people, attitudes and philosophies behind the lead up to a different type of celebration of Australia’s Bicentennial Year. Throughout 1988, 88.9 Radio Redfern became an important focal point for communication and solidarity within the Koori community. The film reveals how Aboriginal people are adapting social structures such as the mass media to serve their needs.
Friday, 20th October 2023
PIRATE RADIO: Calling for an action of peace
Rully Zakaria & Peter Hollo take-over the pirate radio for the day.
The tribute show to the UK pirate radio scene has been cancelled to focus on the current catastrophic situation in Gaza, Palestine. We are calling for an action of peace.
Visual artist Rully Zakaria and local musician Peter Hollo mix the lunchtime DJ set, performing with their mixers and laptops. Together they initiate a cross-genre cultural sonic conversation with elements of Palestinian and Arabic music. It is a music curation of peace, melding traditional folk sounds of the past with current electronica, experimental hiphop and jazz from Palestine. Expect chopped up drums, historic sample pulls of Rashid Khalidi’s lecture on ‘100 Years of War’ and the poetry of Suheir Hammed in a story telling that speaks to the effects of war. This show is dedicated to it’s people, communities and culture. We stand in hope and solidarity to those that are suffering within the walls of Gaza.
The back workshop room will be projecting documentary, One More Jump (1hr 13min) 2019.
Gaza Parkour Team founder Abdallah has managed to escape Gaza. His friend Jehad still lives there, training young athletes for whom sport remains the only thing imbued with hope amidst the conflict. Is it better to leave to fulfil your dreams or stay and fight for your country? The question is the common thread running through this deeply moving account of sport, friendship, and exile.
Film courtesy of palestinefilminstitute.org
Saturday, 21st October 2023
12pm — PANEL: Activist Radio
Hosted by Prof Fran Dyson
Register for your free tickets here https://events.humanitix.com/amplifytsg-activistradio
This is a panel on how community radio can be an integral resource for activist groups across a range of campaigns, cause and projects, using our organisation – Blue Mountains Unions and Community (BMUC) as an example. The focus will be on 1) the ways in which our weekly radio show “Rights, Rorts and Rants” has integrated with other projects of the BMUC such as Politics in the Pub, our annual ‘Sing it Say it: Activist Fest Talent Quest”, local and state pre-election coverage, and ongoing community campaigns 2) the show’s importance in maintaining solidarity during lockdowns 3) it’s role as a networking hub for various groups and 4) it’s role in supporting local political musicians, writers, poets and artists.
Panel featuring Deb Smith, (Secretary of BMUC and founding member of Rights, Rorts and Rants), Fran Dyson (producer and writer on activist/experimental radio and sound ), Nick Franklin ( 2JJ in Sydney in the 70’s, freelance and staff producer on Radio National working on a variety of feature and documentary programs and EP of the Breakfast program) and Mike Holland (lawyer and legal academic for 40 plus years. and researcher/presenter specialising in corruption and government accountability).
Mike Holland Spent several years in the merchant navy before drifting into law in late 70’s. Lawyer and legal academic for 40 plus years. Lifelong member of various trade unions included role as union branch president College of Law. Member of BMUC and legal commentator for Rights Rorts and Rants on Radio Blue Mountains
Nick Franklin worked for many years in radio and television in the UK and Australia. He was among the first journalists to work on 2JJ in Sydney in the 70’s where he was one of a team that started the Prisoners Program. He’s been a freelance and staff producer on Radio National working on a variety of feature and documentary programs and as EP of the Breakfast program. Nick lives in Katoomba and has been a member for the BMUC for over 20 years. A lifelong trade unionist, he’s been a member of the NUJ , the MEAA and the CPSU.
Debra Smith grew up in Sydney and has called the Blue Mountains home since the mid 1990s. Retired now, she as worked in many industries with the longest and most recent being 25 years with Centrelink in a customer service role. She became involved in community radio in 2019 via Radio Blue Mountains
Fran Dyson has worked in various community radio stations over 3 decades (including 3xxx Canberra, Radio Skid Row, Radio Redfern, 2SER fm, Davis Community Television (Davis,California) and currently Radio Blue Mountains) and has produced experimental sound features for the ABC’s audio arts program ‘the Listening Room’.
Saturday, 28th October 2023
12-3pm WORKSHOP: Mini-FM transmitter building
Workshop cancelled. You can see Sally Ann McIntyre perform at Petersham Bowling Club on Sunday 29th October
Wednesday, 1st November 2023
11am-12pm PIRATE RADIO: Interview with Miriam Lyons on futures of climate activism
Hosted by Clare Cooper
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1-2pm Futuring Cultures of Listening workshop
Hosted by Clare Cooper
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2-4pm Students for Palestine action group banner and placard making session in the workshop
Thursday, 2nd November 2023
10.30am-11.30am PIRATE RADIO: Interview with legendary journalist/activist Wendy Bacon on futures of climate activism
Hosted by Clare Cooper
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3-4pm PIRATE RADIO: Weekly Dream Report
with Hethre Contant
Friday 3rd November 2023
9am Qigong with Uncle Jimmy
40 minutes of Qigong over in Victoria Park with Uncle Jimmy. All Welcome.
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10am Clare Harps on About Climate
Clare Cooper improvising on pedal harp with live readings of climate activism and climate emergency news articles and poetic texts.
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4pm End of Semester Jam, Tin Sheds
The Urban Cartel are riffing off Clare’ Harping on about Climate Change and doing their own version.
Sophia Maalsen will be reading Nat Osborne’s For still possible cities: a politics of failure for the politically depressed
Laurence Troy on Double Bass
Steve Burns on guitar
Kurt Iveson on guitar
Dallas Rogers on drums
+ Clare Cooper will do one more improvisation with a guest reader
Saturday 4th November 2023
1-3pm Composing with Radio
Hosted by Hethre Contant and Jon Panther
During this workshop hosted by diffusionFM (Jon Panther and Hethre Contant), we explore techniques and technologies for listening to and composing with radio. In addition to the AM and FM bands, we devise ways to incorporate unique sounds of other radio devices into our musical, performative, dance, and installation-based compositions. We will listen to and play with high-frequency devices, walkie-talkies, Mini-FM transmitters, software-defined radio receivers, and more! Join us!
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Pre-1pm Rally for Palestine
Pick up your placards and banners from Tin Sheds Gallery and head to the rally at 1pm at Hyde Park North https://www.facebook.com/syd.bmbc/
3-5pm Thursday 9th November, 2023
Students for Palestine present a screening of
5 Broken Cameras (2011)
A documentary on a Palestinian farmer’s chronicle of his nonviolent resistance to the actions of the Israeli army. Directors Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi.
6-8.30pm Friday 10th November, 2023
An Other Collective presents ‘Resist to Exist’
Register here https://events.humanitix.com/resist-to-exist
“It’s an evening to unite in our shared mourning for our Palestinian brothers and sisters through spoken word, sound, and art.
This night hopes to sustain our energies towards a free Palestine – understanding that the liberation of Palestine means liberation for us all.”
Other activities
– still life drawing
– Palestinian themed henna
– collective protest banner making
Doors open 6pm – 6:30 start 💕
Credits to @heyporterposter for slide 2 open source font Palestine 🌷
Saturday 11th November 2023
6-7.30pm Book launch: Dissonant Waves
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS NOT AT TIN SHEDS GALLERY
You can also join via zoom here: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/89785116986
** this evening program will be hosted at Frontyard Projects, 228 Illawarra Rd Marrickville. Not in Tin Sheds Gallery** https://www.frontyardprojects.org/
Celebrating the launch of their new book, Dissonant Waves: Ernst Schoen and Experimental Sound in the 20th Century, Dr Sam Dolbear (MayDay Radio and ICI-Berlin) and Professor Esther Leslie (Birkbeck University of London) present a remote presentation centred on the life and times of Ernst Schoen, a German radio programmer, theorist, and close friend of Walter Benjamin. The book from MIT Press investigates “the cultures and technologies of early radio and how a generation of cultural operators—with Schoen at the center—addressed crisis and adversity.”
Wednesday 15th, November 2023
**Please note this overnight program will be hosted at Frontyard Projects, 228 Illawarra Rd Marrickville. Not in Tin Sheds Gallery**
11.59pm-6am Radio Insomnia curated by Anabelle Lacroix and Nicolas Montgermont
Radio Insomnia is an invitation to listen with insomnia, rather than against it, for productivity. Drawing on radio as a medium with its qualities for fostering social relations, and night-time as an intimate space for listening, we aim at developing radiophonic devices for night communities.
Radio Insomnia is interested in the political and poetic forces of waking at night, whether by constraint or by choice. Our starting point is that in the extractivist model of our late capitalist society, sleep is depoliticised: unproblematized as a resource for productivity, which is part of a very normative and synchronized schedule driven by labour and moral values.
Created by and for sleepless bodies, Radio Insomnia was born of the collaboration between curator Anabelle Lacroix and artist Nicolas Montgermont.
Featuring: Wakefulness as Resistance, Bedtime Stories with Gail Priest, Useless Radio and night territories of transmission with Radio Cegeste, Radio Queen, Hethre Contant and Anabelle Lacroix, Tetsuo Kogawa (live from Tokyo), Sounds of Night time protest, David Goren, Post-club techno, Will Johncock, Robert Curgenven, Nocolas Montermont (live from Paris)
Round table discussions, quiet, durational performances. Tea and snacks provided. 228 Illawarra Road, Marrickville – All welcome.
Friday, 17th November 2023
1-3pm PIRATE RADIO: Sonic Street Technologies
Hosted by Moses Iten : Legacy of Colombian sound system culture in Australia.
sonic-street-technologies.com/about/
Saturday, 18th November 2023
Final day of the exhibition! Come along and check out all of the generated conversations and contributions on the design timescape.
The live public program of Amplify is part of the Sonic Street Technologies Research Project funded by European Research Council through Goldsmiths University of London.
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Organisers/curators
– Maya Dahlberger
AMPLIFY: STORY, RESISTANCE, RADIO 
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