SWAB RADIO by Station of Commons will serve as a forum for dialogue between the different spaces at the fair and as a joint sound project for participants in the Polar & Tropic program, who will contribute audio pieces and existing radio archives. The project will also bring together initiatives from the Lumbung ecosystem present at Swab 2025, such as Lumbung Press and Lumbung Indonesia.

Driven by Station of Commons (SoC) —a collaborative platform founded in 2020 by Grégoire Rousseau (Helsinki), Juan Fortun (Geneva), Minerva Juolahti, Alain Ryckelynck, Eddie Choo Wen Yi and Mathilde Palenius— SWAB RADIO builds on SoC’s research into the possibilities of reappropriating technology within public space. SoC advocates radical, alternative strategies to the neoliberal system in terms of digital and independent means of production, communication, and distribution, operating as a research platform that creates a space for thinking around digital commoning. Since its inception, it has collaborated with manifesta13, documenta fifteen, Miss Read art book fair and Afrikadaa, among others.

In collaboration with Radio Fabra – Fàbrica de Creació Fabra i Coats, the station incorporates a territorial pulse: its Fabra Magazine program will be broadcast live from the fair, and its archive will expand the sound grid. The magazine, a mouthpiece for the processes of the residents and the life of the Fàbrica de Creació, combines interviews and sound creations by Oriol Rosell.

Over the 24 hours of the fair —from the opening on October 2 to the closing on October 5— SWAB RADIO will become a living space where artists, exhibitors, and the public are invited to participate, forming a sound community that intertwines voices and radio archives from Station of Commons, Lumbung Radio, Fabra i Coats: Fàbrica de Creació, SWAB, and the local context.

In this way, SWAB RADIO presents itself as a community channel for discussing contemporary art, articulating collective sound imaginaries and global networks, and bringing together artistic agents, exhibitors, and the public in an ongoing conversation.

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