Traces Beyond Confinement: Rethinking Sound, Space, and Resistance at the Prison Radio Festival

SEPT 10-13: PRISON RADIO FESTIVAL PRISHTINA

To stand within the cold, thick walls of the Former Prishtina Prison is to feel the weight of institutional silence. For decades, architectures like this were engineered for a singular purpose: isolation, containment, and the systematic suppression of voice. Yet, during the PRISON RADIO – International Sound & Radio Art Festival—an ambitious, transdisciplinary initiative organized by Stralli in collaboration with cultural actors like Kolektiv Radio, Lumpen Station, and regional partners—these very stone corridors transform into dynamic acoustic chambers. Sound does not merely fill the void; it dismantles it.

The festival approaches the physical prison not only as a historical site of carceral punishment, but as a potent metaphor for the invisible architectures that limit human experience—gender norms, hard political borders, socio-economic precarity, traumatic memory, and linguistic marginalization. Rather than treating radio as a passive distribution network, the festival reclaims it as a defiant, participatory, and spatial medium. It asks a fundamental question: What happens when a space designed to suppress sound becomes the epicenter of collective listening?

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The Architecture of Radical Listening

At the heart of the project lies a critical shift in how we engage with audio. In dominant media ecosystems, listening is often reduced to passive consumption. The Prison Radio Festival reframes it as a political practice of presence—a deliberate act of tuning in to the voices, historical traces, silences, and artistic formulations that are routinely excluded from mainstream narratives.

Through a rich programming mix—site-specific sound installations, sound walks, collective improvisations, academic masterclasses, and live broadcasts—the festival exposes the continuity of carceral logic in modern society. Works like Adina Camhy’s installation, based on the secret acoustic tapping codes used by former political prisoners communicating through water pipes and walls, demonstrate how sound has historically served as a vital lifeline of human solidarity. Sound, in this context, travels where bodies cannot; it seeps through brick, crosses borders, and defies physical confinement.

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Participating artists, researchers, and contributors include:

Adina Camhy (AT), Andrea Marioni/Lumpenstation (CH), Andrés Arizmendy Benavides (CO), Anouk Albrecht (DE), Eli Krasniqi (KS/AT), Elsa Demo (AL), Eva Buzo (AU), Hazir Reka (KS), Ilir Bajri (KS), Juan Camilo Herrera Casilimas (CO), Knut Aufermann (DE), Labinot Kelmendi (KS), Maja Zećo (BiH/UK), Orgest Azizi (FR/AL), Sarah Washington (DE/UK), Thomas Krempke (CH), Uta Ibrahimi (KS) and other local and regional as well as international artists, former prisoners, researchers, musicians, and community radio practitioners.

Featured Radio Works as part of the 72h broadcast

Andrea Marioni/Lumpenstation (CH), Elodie Olson-Coons (CH), Elsa Demo (AL), Diána Vonnák (HU/AT), Holger Czukay (DE) and Arthur Schmidt/Gvoon (DE), Karim Aït-Gacem (BE), Knut Aufermann (DE), Kolektiv Radio (KS), Maja Zećo (BiH/UK), Mina Mohseni (IR), Nderim Arifi (AT/KS), Nuno Ramos (BR), Sarah Washington (DE/UK), Yassin al-Haj Saleh (SY) and other local, regional and international contributions

The Festival will be re-broadcasted partially or completely

• Radio Gwen (CH)
• Lumpenstation (CH)
• WAVE Farm (US)
• Radio Študent (SI)

Partners include:

Stralli (KS), Lumpen Station (CH), Kolektiv Radio (KS), Molla e Kuqe (KS), Former Prishtina Prison (KS)

Full festival program in Albanian and English for download here

Full festival brochure can be downloaded in Albanian and English

Full radio program can be downloaded in Albanian and English

You can read more about the festival at stralli.org