mixed feelings: Saverio Cantoni and Jay Afrisando

multisensory multilingual radio episode

in collaboration with Saverio Cantoni.

With a shared understanding of interdisciplinarity as inherent to anti-ableist and anti-racist practices, this conversation unfolds around the concept of “aural diversity” as a means to shift the discussions of “sound,” “hearing,” and “listening” towards the more complex relationships of our senses and bodyminds. As Jay and Saverio uncover and challenge the underlying biases in these concepts and terms permeated with ‘normalism,’ ableism, and colonialism, they discuss how creative access to expressive possibilities within disabled communities can act as a radical form of resistance.

Conceived as a radio episode, as part of the multisensory, multilingual radio project mixed feelings, the conversation took place in written form: in an extended online exchange and through crip time, centering their aural and neurodivergent needs. A recorded version was broadcast along with subtitles and an IS (International Sign) interpretation, deviating from the live spoken mode as a normative form of communication, in favor of an experimental approach to an aesthetic of access.

mixed feelings, initiated in 2023 and followed by mixed feelings 2 – Still with mixed feelings in 2024/25, is a radio project co-curated by Saverio Cantoni and Dana Cermane, hosted by Refuge Worldwide. Challenging ableism and hearing supremacy in the arts, the project experiments with multiple ways of broadcasting and has focused on the diverse talents and stories of artists from the disabled community.

Work details

Year created: 2025

Medium: video, with printed transcriptions

Duration: 60 minutes

Cast

Host: Refuge Worldwide

Curators: Saverio Cantoni, Dana Cermane

International Sign Language Interpretation: Benedikt J. Sequeira Gerardo

German Translation: Linnéa Bake

Video Production: manua GmbH

Subtitles: Daniele Lucchini

Sound Effects Voiceover: Ada & Clara Hennel

Printed Transcription Design: Lai Guim

Special thanks to: Dana, Frances, George, Leona, Linnéa, Nicky, Richard, and SchwarzRund

This project was created as part of the In Conversation exhibition.

In Conversation is supported by the DAAD Artists-in-Residence Program in Berlin, the University of California, Santa Cruz, the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, and the Exhibition Fund for Communal Galleries. The Galerie im Turm is run by the municipal government of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.

Exhibition

Saverio Cantoni, Open Studios 2025, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL, 23-25 October 2025.

In Conversation, Galerie im Turm, Berlin, DE, 4 September - 23 November 2025.