Radyo Shak Rara Wrapup

The Radyo Shak's co-creators Richard Fleming and Jake Nussbaum get together in Red Hook for a closing discussion about the project's biggest surprises, lessons learned, ideas for improvement, and what the future holds, including their dreams for a mobile radio station that moves from neighborhood to neighborhood in Port-Au-Prince.

The Radyo Shak project spanned over 6 months and surpassed 100 individual radio programs in Haitian Kreyol, English, and French, primarily documenting the artistic community of the Grand Rue and their collaborations with the scores of visiting artists to the 2015 Ghetto Biennale, in addition to profiling many artists of the Haitian diaspora in Brooklyn. Broadcasting in FM to the local community and streaming over the internet, the pirate station became a social hub and a place for creative exchange, often in unexpected and surprising ways. The end result is a multi-voiced celebration of creativity in a starkly underserved neighborhood; a dynamic ethnography of a Haitian "lakou;" and a document of a local culture's collaboration with the international art scene.

In this conversation, Fleming and Nussbaum reflect on the project's successes and failures, including a critical examination of their own role as visitors, and a critique of "NGO culture" and the mystification of Haiti. Most importantly, they express a deep thanks to the Atis Resiztans, Clocktower, the Ghetto Biennale, and the entire Grand Rue community for their kindness in hosting the Radyo Shak and bringing the project to life.

Interspersed throughout are recordings from the fabled rara march to the lakou Atis Resiztans from the Olaffson Hotel.

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