(HUDSON, N.Y.) – A mobile sound installation in the form of an automotive procession, memorializing six residents of Hudson who passed away over the last few years, will take place throughout the city, beginning and ending at Basilica Hudson, on Sunday, August 23, from 1 to 4pm. “Automotive Archive: A Roving Memorial,” a program of the Oral History Summer School, will feature the words and voices of Pam Badila (speaking about Elombe Badila), Lynn Carr, Harold Hanson, Christina Malisoff, Frankie Martino, and Mary Potts, broadcast through car radios via WGXC 90.7-FM. The narrators will speak about the Hudson they knew and loved through the audio archive they left behind.
En masse, participating cars and passengers will make a three-mile loop through town that begins and ends at Basilica Hudson. This Oral History Summer School event is presented in collaboration with Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM and The Listening Project (Kite’s Nest), and hosted by Basilica Hudson.
Participating cars need a working FM radio and up-to-date car insurance. Non-drivers may join the procession as passengers. Participating cars should pre-register at www.oralhistorysummerschool/automotivearchive.
The automotive procession begins promptly at 1 PM for participating cars and 1:30 for passengers at Basilica Hudson’s parking lot, 110 S Front Street. The event concludes with a brief gathering at 3 PM, also at Basilica.
Oral History Summer School was founded in Hudson by oral historian and writer Suzanne Snider in 2012 with the purpose of training an international group of professionals –– writers, social workers, radio producers, artists, teachers, human rights workers, among others –– to make use of Oral History in their documentary and artistic practices. OHSS regularly hosts workshops, listening parties, film screenings, and panels. The school’s mission is four-fold: to provide training, curate public events, establish an audio archive, and collaborate with organizations in and around Hudson.
This summer’s workshops included an eight-day Oral History Intensive (June 12-19), Collecting and Composing: Oral History and Music (June 23-28) and Memory Loss and Mixed Ability Interviewing (June 29-July 3).