We’re happy to announce our collaboration with artist initiative Dear, with whom we have developed Belly full of blind highways: a series of four tape letters by four commissioned artists.

As a precursor to the digital voice note, audio letters, commonly recorded on cassette tape, hold an important place in the field of oral histories. As a means tied to and informed by migration, literacy and intimacy, tape letters for decades provided a way to stay in touch with loved ones as well as a way to convey and document life events, private messages and testimonies.

Belly full of blind highways brings together four tape letters by artists and writers Laura Grace Ford, Palestinian Sound Archive (Mo’min Swaitat), Wendy Morris and, Raoni Muzho Saleh. The letters, all in their own way, reflect upon place and belonging through voice work, sound, noise, found footage and music. All tapes contain a letter of five to six minutes and come packaged with a riso printed J-card which includes an image to accompany the letter as well as information on the letter. The design for the series is by Ivan Martinez and all printed matter is done by Risiko Press.

From Friday 19 May onwards we will release one tape per week, for which you can sign up via Bandcamp. Tapes will be sent out on a rolling basis, so depending on how many tapes you sign up for, you (or the person you forward the tape to) will receive 1-4 tapes over the course of four weeks. Tapes will be sent worldwide from Belgium.