Olivier Lebrun

The workshop led by Olivier Lebrun drew inspiration from Horton Hears a Who! (Dr. Seuss, 1954), where the elephant Horton insists that “a person’s a person, no matter how small” and urges the tiny inhabitants of Whoville to make as much noise as possible to prove their existence. Borrowing from this narrative, students set up a temporary radio station, broadcasting their experiments as a way to affirm their presence as a community.

The project explored radio as a form of publishing — extending the practice of the book into the airwaves. Over five days, participants moved between the classroom and the city of Syracuse, recording sounds that intertwined past and present: from the Ear of Dionysius to the market, through conversations and encounters with local people. These recordings became part of a collective sound library, later edited and assembled much like a printed publication, and finally shared as a radio broadcast on SoundCloud.

Parallel to the collective radio project, students also developed individual visual works, translating the collected stories into personal interpretations. These works formed the basis of an exhibition, where sound and image came together to give shape to the voices of the city and the community.

This workshop was made possible thanks to the support of the Digital Education Hubs (DEH) project, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.