TRANSMISSAO FORDLANDIA
September 16 + 17 2017
10am – 10pm -3GMT
Amazonia, Brazil

Portuguese, Spanish + English

A broadcast on rivers, roads, and rubber
from a former Ford Motors Shipping Station

Fordlandia was a plantation city and agricultural experiment founded by Henry Ford in 1927. The plantation intended to provide steady rubber supply for Ford’s global motorcar empire. The project faced countless stranger-than-fiction failures–proliferating bugs, hubristic fire, a jungle golf course and swimming pool, suburban housing, a debaucherous Island of Innocence, and regular worker revolt. Ford was also lauded  for bringing infrastructure, hospitals, and communication technologies to the jungle. By 1946, Ford returned the plots to Brazil.

Fordlandia is now an active village of 2000+ inhabitants on the precipice of becoming its own jurisdiction. How does the Ford history, and pre-Fordist histories, shape Fordlandia, and the neighboring Ford city of Belterra today? How do production and migration flows organize contemporary economies, ecosystems, and agricultures?

Co-broadcast with 97.5FM Fordlandia, a station co-founded by Radioee and the Fordlandia school.

Produced with Brazilian sound collaborators Ruli Moretti, Mat Guzzo, Veronique Isabelle, Gabi Marthino, and Angelo Madson. Presented as part of the apexart Franchise Exhibition program. Thanks to 80 Kickstarter backers who supported the project.