In April 2021, we invited six audio makers to come together and pod-up in the UnionDocs Residency! In partnership with Gilded Audio, we dreamt up the Pod-Pod to create a supportive space to do some deep listening and creative podcasting with some support from the wider audio community.

After weekly group listening sessions, with generous and constructive feedback, many BBQs and happy hours, and a roster of inspiring guests to help guide a path through, we’re emerging with some things to share.

In this culminating event,  you’ll get a chance to meet the Pod and have a look and a listen to what they’ve been up to in the last few months!

Tickets are limited so grab yours, we’ll be hanging and toasting the Pod-Pod after the program with some drinks.

Proof of vaccination will be requested upon entry. Masks are optional for vaccinated attendees.

Akash Pandey, Clare Wiley, Ida Hardin, Remoy Philip, Sarah Ventre and Artis Curiskis will come together to share trailers of projects they’ve been pursuing independently as well as a project they’ve developed collaboratively in this program.

A FIVE BOROUGH DAY 

A 24-hour sonic exploration by boat, bike and train through New York City, as it reopens after a year of COVID-19 lockdowns. From the Bronx to Brighton Beach, six producers spend four hours each in a different neighborhood over the course of one day, before passing the mic. A co-production by Akash Pandey, Ida Hardin, Sarah Ventre, Remoy Philip, Clare Wiley, and Artis Curiskis, made collaboratively during the UnionDocs 2021 Pod-Pod residency.

Akash Pandey is a freelance audio producer and former K-12 educator who currently works in ed tech. He launched the podcast South Asians Love Rap in 2020 and hopes to continue exploring issues of race, culture, and identity in his work.

Clare Wiley is a journalist and audio producer based in Los Angeles. She covers social issues and culture, with reporting in The Guardian, Vice, Al Jazeera, PRX, WHYY, Deutsche Welle and others. Clare trained with Transom, and is originally from Northern Ireland.

Ida Hardin is a freelance audio journalist. She has worked on a number of different short and long-form stories. Her focus is on telling stories that illuminate different human experiences and broadens perspectives. In 2019, she worked as a fellow at UNESCO, in Paris, France. She spent three-months helping produce a series of 12 podcasts for Many Voices, One World. Her stories have been published on NPR member stations across the Northwest. In her free time, she enjoys immersing herself in new cultural experiences. Her preferred method of travel is by bike. Hardin is based in Eugene, Oregon.

Remoy Philip is a New York City based producer. His work has taken him around the globe producing stories of underserved and marginalized people groups, resulting in humanization and audience activism.

Sarah Ventre is an audio journalist based in Phoenix and is one of the hosts of Unfinished: Short Creek, a podcast from Stitcher/Witness Docs and Critical Frequency about a fundamentalist Mormon community on the Utah-Arizona border. It was named the #3 best podcast of 2020 by The New Yorker, and one of the best podcasts of 2020 by The Atlantic and the Bello Collective. As part of her reporting for Unfinished, Sarah embedded in Short Creek and lived in former FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs’ house. Sarah has produced for NPR, PBS, the Center for Science and the Imagination, the Jewish Women’s Archive, and others.

Artis Curiskis is a journalist and documentarian from Minneapolis. As a Thomas J. Watson fellow, Artis explored and documented de facto nations and communities ranging from the indigenous Rapa Nui community on Easter Island to the Tibetans in exile in North India through the lens of their international soccer teams. Over the last year, Artis has been at the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. He leads the Reporting & Outreach team and the Long-Term Care COVID Tracker.