Radio Ballads: Songs for Change

A book drawn from Radio Ballads, the Serpentine Civic Projects programme that placed artists within social care services and community groups in the borough of Barking and Dagenham between 2019 and 2023.

The name comes from the BBC's Radio Ballads of 1957 to 1964, which wove song, music and sound effects around the voices of workers and communities seldom heard on air. The new ballads were made by Helen Cammock, Sonia Boyce, Ilona Sagar and Rory Pilgrim with carers, social workers, organisers and residents, and the book gathers them under eight 'songs', from Working In and Against Systems and Listening to Dreaming and Voicing. Between them they address grief, terminal illness, domestic abuse and end-of-life care, as well as mental and physical health.

Amal Khalaf, Layla Gatens and Elizabeth Graham edited the book. Alongside the artists' contributions are new and reprinted texts by writers including Sanah Ahsan, adrienne maree brown, Saidiya Hartman, Layli Long Soldier and Jackie Wang, a foreword by Hans Ulrich Obrist, and the experience of people who work in care, from social workers to end-of-life practitioners and somatic therapists. The design is by Elisabeth Klement.

K. Verlag and Serpentine, 2025. 608 pages, thread-sewn softcover, 18.3 x 21 cm. Illustrated in colour throughout.