Serpentine Civic Projects presents a new publication: Radio Ballads: Songs for Change.
What kinds of collective songs are needed today?
Radio Ballads: Songs for Change takes its name from a revolutionary series of radio programmes broadcast on the BBC from 1957–64, a time of rapid change across the UK. Combining song, music and sound effects with the voices and stories of communities, each original Ballad focused on the lived experiences of workers and groups whose voices were otherwise rarely, or never, heard in the media. Building on these histories of collective song and storytelling, this publication shares the process of Serpentine Civic Projects creating four new Radio Ballads over 60 years later (2019—2023), with artists Sonia Boyce, Helen Cammock, Rory Pilgrim and Ilona Sagar in collaboration with carers, organisers, social workers and residents in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
Radio Ballads: Songs for Change centres the voices and experiences of people whose care keeps many of us afloat through civic, grassroots and informal networks. Sharing complex and intimate stories of living and working through multiple ongoing crises, these four projects are woven together by eight songs of collaborative work: Working In and Against Systems, Listening, Processing, Embodying, Dreaming, Supporting, Connecting and Voicing. Together they consider how creative collaboration can open up new spaces to process experiences of mind/body health, domestic abuse, terminal illness, grief and end of life care, and to generate interdependence and collective healing. Exploring new possibilities for us to gather and organise together, Radio Ballads: Songs for Change asks: what kinds of collective songs are needed today?
Editors
Layla Gatens, Elizabeth Graham, Amal Khalaf
Contributors
Sanah Ahsan, Breanna Amoako, Ain Bailey, Camille Barton, Melissa Bell, Sarah Boosey, Sonia Boyce, adrienne maree brown, Clara Catherine Buffong, Sarah Kemper Cook, Susan Cade, Helen Cammock, Ruth Crossley, Jemma Desai, Yasmine Djedje-Fisher-Azoume, Joan Fletcher, Kayden Fearon, Layla Gatens, Elizabeth Graham, Jacob Heiter, Staci K Haines, Robyn Haddon, Ruby Harris, Rachel Hughes, Cally Islam, Priya Jay, Amal Khalaf, Tina Longston, Rae Johnson, Mark Jones, Isobel Lovett, Claire Martin, Rome Martin-Whilby, Geoffrey McCauley, Emily Catherine McGuinness Khoury, Meenadchi, Richard Meeran, Aisha Mirza, Yvonne Miah, Liam O’Connell, John O’Donohue, Joe Namy, Sofia Niazi, Eddie Pagget, Dee Pessoa, Sioned Pennant, Rory Pilgrim, Amelia Poamz, Hugh Prior, Petra Prince, Jim Reynolds, Frances Rifkin, Catherina Amber Rowland, Ilona Sagar, Georgia Scotland, Layli Long Soldier, Marijke Steedman, Sadie St Hilaire, Marged Siôn, Becky Warnock, Jackie Wang, Lorna Webster, Tom White and Jasmine Vyolet.
Contributing Partners
Barking Dagenham Youth Dance, Barking and Dagenham Domestic Abuse Commission, Becontree Broadcast Station, Clean Break, Green Shoes Arts, Hodge Jones and Allen Solicitors, Interfaith Sanctuary Shelter, Implicated Theatre, LBBD Disability and Life Planning Services, LBBD Temporary Accommodation and Hostel Services, LBBD Integrated Care, LBBD Pause, Leigh Day Solicitors, London Asbestos Awareness Group, London Contemporary Orchestra, New Town Culture, PEARL, Radio Active, Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies (Goldsmiths University, Unite the Hotel Workers Branch.
Compost Babylon
Below is a link to an audio recording of Camille Barton’s song Compost Babylon. The song appears in the book, alongside Camille’s text A Funeral For Normal/ Compost Babylon. The audio is shared here as inspiration for how to sing this song.
“This song is an offering to inspire courage, to move on purpose and with intention. It is inspired by my Caribbean ancestors and all those who have shaped change through the powerful vibrations of sound system culture. This song has a call and response rhythm. You are invited to sing to yourself, sing with loved ones or co-conspirators. Sing for the ancestors or the descendants to come. Sing it as many times as feels good.”
– Camille Barton
