People’s Emergency Broadcast Service (PeEBS)

Due to Seattle being one of the hottest housing markets in the country, rent in the city is skyrocketing. In the past decade, we have seen countless small businesses shutter their doors, community members be priced out of the city, and the number of unsheltered people increase. In response to this inequity, and drawing inspiration from community storytelling and the pirate radio project Neighborhood Public Radio , Timothy Firth and I collaborated to create a participatory research project gathering stories about gentrification and displacement in Seattle.

Since launching during the summer of 2018, we have conducted interviews, held workshops, and created pop-up pirate radio stations in Columbia City, Belltown and the International District. The first iteration of the project was hosted during a day-long exhibition and community event at Hologramism in Columbia City, where we broadcasted stories from artists and community members about the changes they’ve seen in the city and hopes for the future. After each interview, participants selected a song to contribute to a list titled “The Anti-Displacement Mixtape Vol. 1.”

This project is ongoing and we are currently working on new workshops to facilitate the collective imagination, as well as new interviews to provide different perspectives on these issues affecting all of our communities.