A VOICE OF THEIR OWN

Polyvocal Feminist Curation in 1980s UAlberta Radio

This multimedia essay “re-sounds” Voiceprint, a 1980s University of Alberta campus radio show created by students Jars Balan and Terri Wynnyk. First, we provide a historical overview of the series alongside the circumstances of its rediscovery, digitization, cataloguing, and curation. Second, we examine how the showrunners mobilize polyvocality – foregrounding discord and disharmony – as both an eco-acoustic aesthetic and political strategy. In articulating a feminist (and anarchist) ethos of plurality, diversity, and social justice, Voiceprint helped foster emerging activist communities, much like how scholarly podcasts do today, through its contributions to contemporary debates surrounding gender and language. Our “unarchiving” of Voiceprint demonstrates how curatorial interventions can unfold across space and time, allowing sonic events to reverberate well beyond their original moment.