design
Neighbouring sounds
Launched in Palestine during the lockdown, Radio Alhara broke geographical and disciplinary boundaries to create a close-knit community of creatives that found common ground
Words by Aidan Imanova
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t a time that has come to be defined by uncertainty, isolation and monotony, Palestinian architects Elias and Yousef Anastas – founders of AAU Anastas, based out of Bethlehem – created a communal online radio station called Radio Alhara with no real agenda other than sharing music as a bridge to connect with the outside world. Months later, the sounds from Radio Alhara, which translates to ‘neighbourhood radio’, travelled as close as Ramallah and as far as Mexico City, bringing together a community of multidisciplinary creatives from architects and designers to photographers and DJs. Radio Alhara is run by the Anastas brothers, alongside artist Yazan Khalili and founders of Amman-based graphic design studio Turbo, Saeed Abu-Jaber and Mothanna Hussein. Inspired by its predecessors such as Radio Quartiere Milano, which started at the beginning of the lockdown, Radio Alhara is the third part of a project called ‘Ya Makan’, which hosts Radio il Hai in Beirut and Radio Alhuma in Tunis – both also meaning ‘neighbourhood radio’ in colloquial dialects. “The pandemic created a kind of binding relationship and connection between different countries around the world and we felt like the entire planet became one neighbourhood,” says Elias. Being based in Palestine meant living in even further isolation from the rest of the world, he explains. The creation of Radio Alhara enabled the marginalised country to flip the script and become “a focal point” through which others were able to connect. Elias adds that as Palestinians, access to travel even within the region is difficult. The radio’s unintimidating and open communal approach
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has allowed them to connect with creatives all over the Middle East and beyond. “I think it is very much related to design in that sense,” he says. “Design is automatically affiliated with territory for us and I think the Radio is encompassing this idea of territory because it is something that is extremely fragile,” says Elias. Sound, in this instance, was able to abstract the limits of territory and political restrictions, he adds. “The Radio has a very strong relationship to our architecture because, at the end of the day, it’s a sonic space and the way you construct it involves daily commitment. We like to think that the Radio is a reflection of what a public space is. We don’t have a specific agenda, it’s just a space that has the ability to construct different spatial sounds.