The Community Fellowship Program: Meet Our Fellows And Their Projects
“Good ideas are common – what’s uncommon are people who’ll work hard enough to bring them about” — Ashleigh Brilliant
Today, we’re thrilled to announce the start of our Community Fellowship Program that will feature members of the community who are bringing good ideas to life. We share the enthusiasm of people who believe in the power of sounds to express themselves, find meaning in the world around them and connect people. That’s why we’re helping to support the projects they are passionate about.
In this post, we’re inviting you to meet and learn about the first 4 of 6 Fellows of our first Fellowship class.
Sounds Of My City:
Katie Needs (pictured right) from Toronto is working on a project called Sounds Of My City (follow her Tumblr and Twitter), a collaborative, community-oriented exploration of Toronto’s many sounds. The main goal of the project is to create a collective audio archive of Toronto – a sound map of the little corners, big streets, distinct neighborhoods, parks, landmarks, events and festivals that make up Toronto’s soundscape. Want to get involved? Share the sounds of your city with Katie below. In Katie’s words:
Follow the Sounds Of My City project:
Tumblr: http://soundsofmycity.tumblr.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/soundsofmycity
Participate: submit the sounds of your city
United Sounds:
Our second Fellow is Alex Stiver (also from Toronto and pictured left) and her project United Sounds (on Twitter). The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) outlines the rights to which people around the world are entitled. In over 370 languages, the UDHR is the most widely translated text in THE WORLD! Pretty cool. Alex will encourage as many audio recordings of the Declaration representing as many translations as possible. Varied sounds, same important message, all stored in one accessible place on SoundCloud. From Abkhaz to Zulu, these recordings we will bring the UDHR to life through the sounds and the stories of people around the world. We cannot wait. If you speak one of the many languages, make sure to message Alex through SoundCloud. In Alex’s words:
Follow the United Sounds project:
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/groups/united_sounds
Twitter: http://twitter.com/United_Sounds
Participate: Record the UDHR in your language
Without Walls:
Ever wondered how people interact with public art installments in the streets of New York City? That’s a question our third Fellow Eduardo Lipe (in the middle) is trying to answer in a project called The Without Walls Project.
For the next three months Eddie will be documenting public art spaces, big and small, in all of Manhattan and some of Queens and Brooklyn. In addition, he’ll be heading out to other cities along the East Coast to add a little bit of non-NYC flavor and on a weekly basis he’ll be making maps for each of the neighborhoods documented and bringing them to life thanks to ThingLink. In Eddie’s words:
Follow the Without Walls project:
Tumblr: http://withoutwallsproject.tumblr.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/withoutwallspjt
Participate: http://withoutwallsproject.tumblr.com/participate
The Silk Road In Stereo:
And last but not least: what does 10,000 km across the world’s largest landmass sound like? Follow our fourth Fellow Kara van Malssen (not pictured) and her project The Silk Road In Stereo on an audio exploration across Europe, Central Asia, and Mongolia. The journey along the ancient Silk Road – through countries including Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan – will be dedicated to collecting the sounds of the diverse landscape, she’ll capture as much of the soundscape as possible – markets, conversations, performances, bazaars, traffic, nature, and anything else that comes across our recorders. The result will be a series of carefully curated audio pieces presented on SoundCloud and silkroadinstereo.com.
Follow The Silk Road In Stereo project:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/silkroadnstereo
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/silk-road-in-stereo
Whoa, that’s quite an amazing set of projects by our very first generation of Community Fellows. We’ll keep you posted about the progress as the projects progress so watch this space often.
Do you have an amazing project that would qualify for a Fellowship? Pitch your idea in the comments for a chance to get selected as an official Community Fellow.