Yowei Shaw

Yowei will collaborate with a small group of men working to overcome homelessness to create a half-hour audio documentary following a day in the life of a homeless person in Philadelphia. After a series of production workshops at the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission, participants will gather sound, conduct interviews, and produce a documentary that explores the root causes, mainstream perceptions, and consequences of homelessness - as well as possible solutions. The documentary will premiere at a listening party followed by a panel discussion.

Yowei is an audio producer, reporter, and documentarian whose mission is to combat misinformation, disinformation, and media noise by producing stories about people that were overlooked by the mainstream media—stories that are in-depth, nuances, and thought-provoking. Through her practice, she seeks to highlight deep, universal truths about the human experience and make other people feel these insights deep down so that they begin to question their assumptions about other people and the world. Yowei makes the utmost effort to spotlight voices and perspectives that do not get as much mainstream media attention—namely those of young people, people of color, immigrants, poor people, and other marginalized communities. She also shares her self-taught skills with others in an effort to use radio as a means of speaking truth to power.

Yowei led weekly radio production workshops for a small group of minority Philadelphia public school students and with them, produced a series of radio and video stories exploring the theme of love and relationships. The youth radio reporters learned the basics of pitching stories, interviewing, recording, script-writing, voicing, and digital audio editing. Their stories explored sexuality, dating, familial relationships, and much more - all while presenting a more accurate perspective on young people's lives and their contributions in this city. The project culminated in a public listening showcase and panel discussion with the youth radio reporters, and the stories being aired on WHYY 90.9 FM during the week of Valentine's Day. You can check out the stories here:

• Head Over Heels for Cooking
• What Twilight Didn't Teach Me About Love
• To Date or Not to Date - That is the Chinese Immigrant Teenager's Question

Yowei will work with minority youth to produce audio stories that examine their individual lives, schools, and communities. Through intensive radio production workshops, youth radio apprentices will learn the basics of pitching stories, interviewing, field recording, script writing, editing, and voicing. The stories seek to promote intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, as well as better understanding about young people’s lives and their contributions.

Listen here to one of the radio show that was produced.

Yowei will create an audio documentary using recorded interviews and anonymous phone messages left by South Philadelphia high school students to explore the racial tensions and bullying at the school. Yowei’s goals for the documentary are to answer difficult questions about racism, immigration, violence, the educational system and the causal factors behind school bullying, the role adults play in this process, and the impact it has on victims, aggressors, friends, and families. In order to make the documentary process more transparent, she will also blog about the project during production—recording her challenges, techniques, and progress as she attempts to provide insight into a complex and troubling situation. After the piece is finished Yowei will facilitate workshops intended to instigate conversation about the issues raised in the documentary and in the process.

Using audio recordings gathered from meetings, protests, and interviews with members of a Philadelphia-based socialist group, the People’s Revolutionary Party (PRP), Yowei will develop an audio documentary that examines the voices of the PRP activists as they organize for social change. Her work will address their motivations, the obstacles they faced when pursuing large-scale change in the face of considerable resistance, and provide an up-close look at a marginalized group not normally considered by the media or mainstream society. The documentary will challenge listeners to think seriously about alternative voices in the movement for social change. This work is especially relevant to the artist, a Chinese-American whose grandparents fled from China in the face of communism. Once completed, the documentary will be available as an online podcast and will be submitted to local broadcast and online outlets.