Returning
The second half of the Odes[s]a season is coming this Spring
Hello Listeners,
If you’ve been with us for some time, thank you for waiting. If you’re just joining now, thank you for being here. We were on a bit of a hiatus due to some personal tragedies but this is a note to reintroduce ourselves and let you know that the second half of season four is coming this Spring and Summer. We’re a pretty small shop with Jess and Adriene running things for the most part but we’re excited to announce a collaboration with the artist and musician Oksana Kazmina, who has been working with us behind the scenes.
[Photo by By Andrii Boyko]
Oksana works across disciplines and mediums to create zines, fashion, video essays, music, animations, documentaries and many other projects. She has been consulting with us on the next two episodes which are emblematic of the rest of the season. It’s a focus we’ve been calling urban intangibles; the characteristics of a city that are not the built environment yet they lace their way through every element of the streets. They are, to put it more accurately if less academically, the vibe.
The next two episodes are about walking and talking. For an Odes[s]a at war these are particularly contentious proposals. In our sixth episode we’re taking to the streets with Odes[s]a based field recordists and musicians, listening to what changes and what stays the same in once familiar streets. This one’s out today along with an off-cut of a walk through Gorky Park for good measure. Have a listen. In the forthcoming seventh episode, we have a chat about Odes[s]a’s mercurial language politics and the divisions that manifest through casual encounters in public space.
In other news, we want to shout out our collaborators at система system who continue to work on their long term project Ukrainian Field Notes: Sound, Music and Voices from Ukraine After the Full-Scale Invasion, which is on its second volume. Listen to more about the project on Resonance FM’s A Closer Listen and grab a copy of the book at Velocity Press.
Then for some reading recommendations, we’ve been looking back at Tanya Richardson’s 2008 classic, Kaleidoscopic Odessa: History and Place in Contemporary Ukraine to get into the mode of walking. In the book, Richardson reflects on walking tours and memory in the city center. We continue on that trajectory to think about walking and memory in all parts of Odes[s]a, where war continues to reconfigure residents’ ability to project the past onto their future in the city. For talking, we turn to Laada Bilaniuk’s 2005 Contested Tongues: Language Politics and Cultural Correction in Ukraine. Years before Russia’s most recent invasion, Bilaniuk investigated the politics of a multilingual Ukraine, one where Ukrainian, Russian, and surzhyk act as flypaper for the tense politics of nationalism.
As we come to the end of this season, we want to hear from you dear listeners! Any questions, comments, asides, jokes, corrections, memories, book recommendations, or simple greetings are great. Send us a quick voice note at htbdpodcast@gmail.com and we’ll gather these up for the final episode. As always, check out www.htbdpodcast.com for extras and updates. We’ll be sneaking a few special collaborations in the feed in the coming months.
Till soon,
Your HTBD Team