As part of this new session of “Stakeholders,” our regular program dedicated to exploring our archives, we will revisit the archives of the exhibition “Eldoradio,” presented at Bétonsalon in 2011, under the co-direction of Mélanie Bouteloup and Anna Colin, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the liberalization of the airwaves in France. Bringing together numerous artists – Franck Leibovici, Louise Hervé and Clovis Maillet –, researchers – Thierry Lefebvre, Elisabete Fernandes –, filmmakers – Isabelle Cadière , les frères Dardenne –, collectives – L’Encyclopédie de la parole –, as well as professors – Cécile De Bary, Thierry Lefebvre, Richard Millet, Frédérique Berthet et Arnaud Maïsetti –and students from Université Paris Cité, the exhibition was articulated around the radio archives of the Eldoradio association. These archives were assembled outside institutional circuits by a group of enthusiasts, amateurs, and radio professionals, including Joëlle Girard – archivist and documentalist, and executive director of Eldoradio.fr – who built a database of radio archives comprising more than 50,000 records spanning from 1958 to 2008, along with a wide range of related materials (videos, press clippings, posters, stickers, etc.) associated with the radio medium.

Through maps, films, and recordings offering different ways of approaching a heterogeneous documentary corpus (sound archives, posters, press articles, photographs, magazines, etc.), the exhibition retraced several key moments in the history of radio: from the effervescence of free, activist, and pirate radio following the abolition of the state monopoly over broadcasting in 1981, to the emergence of web radio in the following decades. It also highlighted the crucial role played by minoritized communities (such as the Guyanese station Radio Voka) and by women (notably in the documentaries of Isabelle Cadière) in the development of these radio practices and their political uses.  

The exhibition was accompanied by an extensive program – concerts, listening sessions, conferences, screenings, and workshops co-organized with the GRER (Groupe de Recherches et d’Études sur la Radio) – which offered a broad panorama of the evolution of radio practices in France. This session will revisit that history alongside Thierry Lefebvre, then professor at Université Paris Cité and an contributor to the exhibition.