Yara Mekawei / Lynn Nandar Htoo and Victoria Yam
Sonic Forces / Resonant Resilience

As part of the ORF musikprotokoll festival, Ö1 Kunst zum Hören presents the two winners of the CTM Radio Lab 2025 on “affection.”

There is unrest at Egypt’s borders. Refugees are coming into the country from Palestine, Libya, and Sudan. In Sonic Forces, Yara Mekawei documents the sounds of border crossings and refugee camps. She understands this soundscape as an echo of her personal struggle for freedom as a female Muslim artist and captures the tension between security and oppression in a hypnotic composition.

In many countries in Southeast Asia, queer people are subjected to harsh repression. They often use music as a means of empowerment and healing. The two sound artists Lynn Nandar Htoo and Victoria Yam, who fled Myanmar, contribute to this dynamic with Resonant Resilience. With traditional folk songs, protest songs, and contemporary pop music, they celebrate their identities and articulate resistance to political oppression. They work with field recordings from Yangon, nature sounds, and analog and digital sounds.