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This episode of "Radio Roaming" features a new work for radio and voice by artist Maya Nguyen. 

Like the popular singing competition but for speaking, The Voice features participants with distinct speaking voices. Selected through an open call and by invitation, these ten participants identified themselves to have unique speaking voices that are often commented upon, if not outright complimented: “You’d be great on the radio!” But what exactly qualifies as a good radio voice? Historically it’s a warm, resonant, male voice with a Mid-Atlantic accent that is pleasant, yet authoritative — a generic attractiveness set by a shared social imaginary. Today this social imaginary has expanded to more diverse standards, but it’s not to say there are no standards altogether. So in our current moment, which voices get to radiate across airwaves? This project compiles ten demo recordings of unique voices reading one passage, an excerpt from Werner Herzog’s film “Encounters at the End of the World.” Consider them as auditions. But not in the sense of a competition, so much as in the sense of your own act of listening. 

With generous participation of Jared Brown, Lynnea Domienik, Shengyu Xu, Mariposa Divina, Zeynep Karahasan, Alexis de Chaunac, Pia Singh, Kat Bawden, Mauricio López F., and Noa Micaela Fields.

Maya Nguyen is a Chicago-based artist who gathers disparate (and often clashing) material sources into sound performances. Her favored sources include: speech fragments, sounds imitating nature sounds, internet debris, miscellaneous tools, and videos of daily life. Recent shows include Goethe-Institut (Chicago), SoMad Gallery (New York), Ramona Residency (Houston), Saari Residency (Mynämäki, FI), Manzi Art Space (Hanoi) and elsewhere. Nguyen is the Akademie Schloss Solitude Fellow 2026-28 (Stuttgart), Arts Club of Chicago Fellow 2025-26, and winner of Karl Sczuka Radio Art Research Prize 2024. 

Radio Roaming bounces across the electromagnetic spectrum, exploring the many possibilities of experimentation with sending and receiving. Produced by Wave Farm staff members, each episode features a selection of contemporary and/or historical radio and transmission art, with the aim of expanding the Wave Farm Radio Art and Transmission Art Archives.