Radio Drugega — del uradnega programa evropske prestolnice kulture GO! 2025 — je internetna radijska platforma, umetniški in kuratorski projekt, namenjen raziskovanju konceptualnih in fizičnih prostorov margin ter pojmovnih mrež, vsebin in zgodb, ki te marginalne prostore gradijo in prepajajo. Vsebinski leitmotiv radija, njegov topos in posledični etos temeljijo na razumevanju prostora margine kot prostora radikalne odprtosti in kreativne produktivnosti, ki omogoča v več smeri uperjeno manjšinsko postajanje, postajanje, ki je tako zelo značilno za margine kot »območja nepredvidljivosti na robovih diskurzivne stabilnosti, kjer se prekrivajo protislovni diskurzi ali kjer se zbližujejo neskladne vrste ustvarjanja pomenov« (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, From the Margins, 1994).
Kolektiv Robida, glavni pobudnik in izvajalec projekta Radio Drugega, je kolektiv, ki deluje na presečišču pisane in govorjene besede – z revijo Robida in Radijem Robido – ter prostorskih praks, razvitih v odnosu do beneške vasi Topolò/Topolove, kjer kolektiv živi in deluje. Skozi svoje večletno delovanje — njegovi začetki segajo v leto 2015 — se je kolektiv naselil ravno v prostoru margine, še bolje, v prostoru margine že tako marginaliziranega prostora skupnosti Slovencev v Italiji. V svojem raziskovanju je kolektiv ob raziskovanju marginalnih praks in diskurzov naletel na produktivni aspekt zasedanja vmesnih prostorov, ki so jih iz takšnih ali drugačnih razlogov skozi zgodovino zasedali tisti, ki smo jih lahko v različnih časovnih točkah umeščali pod filozofski krovni pojem drugega: na eni strani marginalizirane socialne ali narodnostne skupnosti na drugi npr. živali in rastline ter nasploh vse ne-človeške entitete, ki so bile v humanistični tradiciji velikokrat bolj ali manj načrtno spregledane. Ta produktivni aspekt je najbolje predstavila bell hooks, ko je opisovala izkušnje marginaliziranih temnopoltih Američank in Američanov in njihov specifičen pogled na svet, ki ga je omogočalo zasedanje prostora margine: »Biti na robu pomeni biti del celote, a zunaj glavnega telesa. […] Ker smo živeli tako kot smo – na robu –, smo razvili poseben način videnja realnosti. Gledali smo tako od zunaj navznoter kot od znotraj navzven. Pozornost smo usmerili tako na center kot na rob. Oba smo razumeli. Ta način gledanja nas je opomnil na obstoj celega vesolja, glavnega telesa, sestavljenega iz margine in središča.« (bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 1984) In ravno ta dvojni pogled in to privilegirano pozicijo, ki jo zasedamo, tisti, ki živimo na marginah, želimo razširiti, predstaviti in nadalje raziskovati preko Radia Drugega, v sklopu projekta EPK GO! 25.
V prvi sezoni Radia Drugega smo v Topolovem v radijski rezidenci gostili tri raziskovalce/umetnike: Lijuan "Lu" Klassen, yoichija iwamota in Jacka Bardwella.
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The Other Radio — part of the official programme of the European Capital of Culture GO! 2025 — is an internet radio platform, an artistic and curatorial project, dedicated to exploring the conceptual and physical spaces of the margins and the conceptual networks and stories that build and permeate these marginal spaces. The content leitmotif of the radio, its topos and the resulting ethos are based on the understanding of the space of the margin as a space of radical openness and creative productivity, which enables a minoritarian-becoming directed in several directions, a becoming that is so characteristic of the margins as “zones of unpredictability at the edges of discursive stability, where contradictory discourses overlap, or where discrepant kinds of meaning-making converge.” (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, From the Margins, 1994)
Robida Collective, the main initiator and implementer of The Other Radio project, is a collective that works at the intersection of the written and spoken word — with Robida magazine and Radio Robida — and spatial practices developed in relation to the village of Topolò/Topolove, where the collective lives and works. During its many years of activity — its beginnings date back to 2015 — the collective has settled precisely in the space of the margin, even better, in the space of the margin of the already marginalized community of Slovenes in Italy. In its research, while investigating marginal practices and discourses, the collective encountered the productive aspect of occupying intermediate spaces, which were for one reason or another throughout history occupied by those who could be placed at different points in time under the philosophical umbrella term of the other: on the one hand, marginalized social or ethnic communities, on the other animals and plants and in general all non-human entities, which have often been more or less intentionally overlooked in the humanistic tradition. This productive aspect was best presented by bell hooks when she described the experiences of marginalized black Americans and their specific worldview made possible by occupying the space of the margin: “To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body. [...] Living as we did-on the edge-we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and and from the inside out. We focused our attention on the center as well as on the margin. We understood both. This mode of seeing reminded us of the existence of a whole universe, a main body made up of both margin and center.” (bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 1984) And it is precisely this double view and this privileged position that we, those of us who live on the margins, occupy, that we want to expand, present and further explore through The Other Radio, as part of the ECC GO! 25 project.
In the first season of The Other Radio, we hosted three researchers/artists in the radio residency in Topolò: Lijuan "Lu" Klassen, yoichi iwamoto and Jack Bardwell.
