Transmissions
XMTR Festival 26: Sweet Talk
Mri Berlin (DE, 2026)
Miri Berlin (DE, 2026)
9 min
A moment in a local kitchen, recorded and produced as part of the XMTR Festival residency. The cakes were actually made for the women selling their vintage items in the back garden, to enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee during their breaks. But somehow visitors and friends also found their way into the kitchen, and the cakes were so popular that they were soon gone. "Sweet Talk" is a collage of these small encounters in the kitchen. The cakes take centre stage, drawing everyone’s attention and becoming the focus of the conversations.
Produced by Miri Berlin
Commissioned by XMTR Audio Arts Festival 2026
XMTR Festival 26: St Leonard’s Bathing Pool Remembered
Mri Berlin (DE, 2026)
Mary Hooper (UK, 2026)
16 min
This audio work has been created with the voices of people who have memories of swimming and working at the former Bathing Pool in St. Leonards. The pool was built in 1933 as an Olympic training pool for the Empire Games, one of only 3 in the UK, and as a public resource to encourage health and fitness. The pool passed into private hands in 1960 and was turned into a holiday camp, but it became financially unviable by the 1980’s. The pool was demolished in1989 and is now a much contested site between local people who would like to keep the open space as community resource and a series of Developers, who plan to build up to 146 dwellings.
This collection of memories spanning 60 years of the Bathing Pool’s life is a remarkable example of how buildings can generate a Genius Loci of people and place. Memories, history and identity are anchored in these places, showing how important it is to create and preserve public spaces where everyone can congregate in an egalitarian space, building memories that last a life time and beyond, marking changes in culture, life style and community over generations.
Thank you to the people whose voices have contributed many precious, funny and moving memories that bring the Bathing Pool back to life: Cath Cooper, Andrew Weight, Doug Edworthy, Rob Edworthy, Sally Smith, Janette Morley, John Purfield, Jessica Beaghen, John Stout, and Polly Sharkey.
Produced by Mary Hooper
This audio story was developed with in collaboration with Lucia Scazzocchio Social Broadcasts and XMTR. Many thanks to Artists Now Company who provided bursary support to seed fund this project.
Commissioned by XMTR Audio Arts Festival 2026
Trip to Gurindji Country
Helene Thomas (AU, 2026)
Helene Thomas (AU 2026)
16 min
Five eager colleagues from the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) set out from Mparntwe/Alice Springs, travelling 985 kilometres north to Kalkarindji, a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, to take part in the 2025 Gurindji Freedom Day Festival. Leading the way is Orlando Rubuntja, a young Indigenous media creator and broadcaster from Kalkarindji. This radio feature follows Orlando as he wrestles with the discomfort of interviewing his own people — the shame that surfaces each time he asks for an interview — set against the deep pride he carries as a Gurindji man.
Produced by Helene Thomas in collaboration with Orlando Rubuntja, Caleb Doolan and Brenton Woods from the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA). Freedom Day song by Lazy Late Boys
Between two rivers - a journey into the mind of the land/Rhwng dwy afon - Taith i feddwl y tir
Ed Baxter (UK 2026)
Ed Baxter (UK 2026)
56 min
Between two rivers: a journey into the mind of the land/Rhwng dwy afon: Taith i feddwl y tir” is a radio artwork in English and Welsh, realised close to the sources of the rivers Severn and Wye, in Ceredigion, Wales.
Created by Ed Baxter (BASCA Composer of the Year 2013 etc), Steffan Cennydd (Theatr Cymru’s “Romeo a Juliet” 2025 etc); Richard James (Evolution of Beauty; Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci etc); and Michael Umney (Gold Award Winner, New York Festivals Radio Awards 2025; Winner, URTI Radio Grand Prix 2024 etc). With contributions from Dan Craig, Sandy Craig, Neil Haymer, Dewi Roberts and members of Tai Haf Heb Drigolyn. Thanks to all at The Hanging Garden, Llanidloes, Amanda Thesiger and Tim Meacham. Supported by The Colwinston Foundation, Hinrichsen Foundation, The Leche Trust and Unity Theatre Trust.
Produced by Ed Baxter
Narration Steffan Cennydd
Music, field recordings by Richard James
Interviews, field recordings by Michael Umney
Festival Selects: New Friend Chapter 4 - 1000 Miles
Bitsy Knox (CA, 2026)
Bitsy Knox (CA, 2026)
56 min
New Friend is a 5-part limited series audio documentary that delves into the fascinating story behind photographs taken by the groundbreaking lesbian artist and filmmaker Barbara Hammer in August 1973, on Hornby Island, Ja-Dai-Aich, British Columbia.
It's a story of art, archives, single motherhood, long-distance love affairs and liberation across 1000 miles.
Chapter 4 - 1000 Miles:
It’s the Summer of 1973. Barbara Hammer has had a busy summer, zigzagging across California on her motorcycle, camping and visiting ex-lovers, lesbian conferences and festivals. Along the way, she meets Terry Anderson, a feverishly intelligent single mother of two, an academic with an artistic mind.
Together, they embark on a 1000-mile adventure that will lead them to Hornby Island Ja-Dai-Aich along with two 19-year olds, Martha Ross and Rosemary Allenbach. On Hornby, Barbara Hammer takes three rolls of film, documenting a brief moment in all of its charged artistic and romantic energy.
In this chapter of New Friend, we delve into the torrid mystery of Barbara and Terry's long-distance love affair across dozens and dozens of letters, and culminating in an unforgettable, calamitous road trip.
Listener discretion: This chapter of New Friend contains references to addiction.
Hosted by Bitsy Knox.
Production, research, script and sound design by Bitsy Knox.
Mixing and mastering by Robert Steenkamer.
New Friend was originally aired on Cashmere Radio Berlin and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio. Cover image courtesy of The Estate of Barbara Hammer. New Friend is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts. Thank you to: The Estate of Barbara Hammer Hornby Island Community Archives Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Cashmere Radio, Berlin 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio KOW, Berlin Company Gallery, New York City Hornby Arts Centre Florrie Burke Louky Keijsers Koning Martha Ross Derek Anderson Rebecca Dunne Emma Walter Emily Harrison All beings, human and more-than-human, of Hornby Island, Ja-Dai-Aich, and its surrounding waters—where I am a part-time, uninvited guest on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral land of the K'omoks First Nation, the Eitsen, Pentlach, Sasitla and Sahtloot peoples.
Festival Selects: Good Clean Fun
Hayley Clarke (UK, 2026)
Hayley Clarke (UK 2025)
5 min
In the past few years I have become fascinated with sauna culture, and its ability to bring people together. It allows people to connect with new people in a space that can often feel quite intimidating. You may encounter people from different walks of life, and speak to people you might not normally interact with. Yet somehow, you’re all on a level playing field inside this sweat lodge.
A couple of years ago, when I was on a self-imposed writing retreat in Worthing, I booked into a local sauna down the road in Shoreham. This is where I met Dan Lawson - Ultra Marathon Runner, Aufguss Master and one of the co-founders of Nomadic Sauna. This is his story to tell, and it’s all good clean fun.
Produced by Hayley Clarke
Festival Selects: Shorn Women
Chloe Turpin (UK/FR 2025)
Chloe Turpin (UK/FR 2025)
33 min
At the end of WWII, around 20,000 women across France were accused of ‘horizontal collaboration’. Their alleged crime: sleeping with German soldiers. And their punishment was having their heads shaved and facing a public beating. Chloe’s grand-mother’s Émilienne was one of the shorn women of French liberation. Like many others at the time, her story was always shrouded in shame and mystery.
From uncomfortable conversations with family members in Brittany to a trawl through the French National Archives, Shorn Women looks at this controversial and overlooked historical event. Confronting official and personal narratives, it's a story about justice, taboo and the power of speech.
Produced, Written and Music by Chloe Turpin
Voices: James Davey, Naomi Bloomstein and George Roll
Vi's Marvellous Rhymes
Catherina Rowland for BBS Community Radio (UK, 2025)
Catherina Rowland (UK 2025)
105 min
Violet Charlton was a 95 year old poet, or as she preferred to call herself, a "rhymester". This programme is a collection of her rhymes as read by Vi herself. Some are funny, some are sad but all of them are very entertaining. Also included is a short story and an interview about her life in Dagenham and her rhymes.
Produced by Catherina Rowland for BBS Community Radio
Muine Bheag -- Bagenalstown
Jack O'Driscoll & Mark Buckeridge (IRE 2025)
Jack O'Driscoll & Mark Buckeridge (IRE 2025)
28 min
This episode of Muine Bheag Arts Radio delves into the name of our town -- Muine Bheag/Bagenalstown -- through archival recordings and on-the-street interviews, in order to understand its complex and unique history. We meet with local historian John Murphy, students from two of the local primary schools and members of the community to understand their perspectives on the town’s dual name.
Muine Bheag Arts is an artist-run organisation based in a small town in County Carlow that engages with the local context to present projects in the public realm. Guided by values of collaboration and experimentation, Muine Bheag Arts invites dialogue between artists, audiences, community and place.
The programme includes exhibitions, workshops, events, residencies, publishing and radio broadcasts. These platforms provide opportunities for artists to research, test and make through close collaboration with the organisation and members of the local community.
Produced by Jack O'Driscoll & Mark Buckeridge
Edited by Jack O'Driscoll
XMTR Radio Hour #41: Sounding Colossus
Social Broadcasts (UK 2026)
Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2026)
67 min / Episode 41 of 41
This XMTR Radio Hour is a little different. Lucia speaks to Garry Hunter the director of arts and heritage organisation Fitzrovia Noir - and composer/violinist Jack Campbell about a new commission from the educational foundation that has grown out of the Tommy Flowers community pub in Poplar, East London. The pub’s namesake Tommy Flowers designed and built Colossus, the world’s first programmable electronic computer, to help decipher the encrypted messages sent by the German High Command during WW2. 23-year-old composer and musician Jack M.Campbell has recently written and extensively performed a piece inspired by Alan Turing’s Bombe. With a bursary from TFF, he has now composed a score responding to Colossus, the computer built by Tommy Flowers to greatly expedite the reading of Lorenz traffic. The code was cracked by mathematician Bill Tutte, who, after the war, went on to teach at two universities in Canada, Jack’s home country. Following the conversation about outsiders, music, algorithms and maths, is an exclusive rendition of this composition: ‘Colossus’ by Jack Campbell.
XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio
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