Europe DayEurope
Day'24

9 May

This Is What A Generation Sounds Like offers eight young Europeans the opportunity to develop podcast episodes telling their stories from their part of Europe. These episodes explore the continent’s major problems, from homophobia to the dismantling of democracy, as well as potential solutions. These sound-rich, beautifully produced audio stories are also being turned into innovative and immersive “visual” podcasts, combining The Europeans’ audio expertise with the cutting-edge design skills of storytelling collective Are We Europe.

So far, the podcasts have taken us to a village in southern Italy to hear the coming of age stories of a father and son, both of them gay men;between Romania and Germany, to understand what freedom of movement actually feels like in all its human awkwardness and vulnerability; and to Albania, where we heard about a very special soup passed down through the generations.

The series has been praised by the Financial Times for its “intimate and poignant tales of isolation and anxiety, but also of love and adventure”. A version of the third episode in the series, “Sara”, aired on NPR’s “Rough Translation”.

Episodes 4 and 5, due for release in the coming weeks, tell the stories of Mohamed, an undocumented young Guinean man in Amsterdam, and Hanna, a Belarusian poet who was jailed during the country’s huge pro-democracy protests.