“We’re looking out through a window to a field of weeds and sand and stones”: The Stadium Broadcast, a Radio Memorial

Abstract

This article explores the scope of small-scale radio to create an auditory geography of place. It focuses on the short-term art radio project The Stadium Broadcast, which was staged in November 2014 in an earthquake-damaged sports stadium in Christchurch, New Zealand. Thousands of buildings and homes in Christchurch have been demolished since the February 22, 2011, earthquake, and by the time of the broadcast the stadium at Lancaster Park had been unused for three years and nine months, and its future was uncertain. The Stadium Broadcast constructed a radio memorial to the Park’s 130-year history through archival recordings, the memories of local people, observation of its current state, and a performed site-specificity. The Stadium Broadcast reflected on the spatiality of radio sounds and transmissions, memory, postdisaster transitionality, and the impermanence of place.

Counter memorials and counter monuments in Australia’s commemorative landscape: A systematic literature review

“…Three studies focused on memorials to natural disasters in Australia and New Zealand (Atkinson-Phillips, 2020;Joyce, 2018;Logan, 2015). Logan (2015) explored the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfire disaster through the burnt remnants of the former Cockatoo Kindergarten in the Ash Wednesday Memorial (1983).…”

“…Counter memorials to natural disasters were also found in New Zealand, with a particular focus on the earthquakes in Christchurch. Joyce (2018) studied the Stadium Broadcast (staged in 2014), a radio memorial of archival recordings that hosts the memories of local people. According to Joyce (2018), the Stadium Broadcast reflects on the spatiality of radio sounds, post-disaster transitionality and the impermanence of place due to natural disasters.…”

“…Joyce (2018) studied the Stadium Broadcast (staged in 2014), a radio memorial of archival recordings that hosts the memories of local people. According to Joyce (2018), the Stadium Broadcast reflects on the spatiality of radio sounds, post-disaster transitionality and the impermanence of place due to natural disasters. In disaster memorials, the relationship between humans and nature was another theme that emerged from the literature, specifically that of the Anthropocene, which highlights the fact that humans live "within a meteorological theatre that impacts and is impacted by their presence" (Widrich, 2019).…”