Audible’s Artist Collaboration Goes Global

In 2021, Audible launched the Newark Artist Collaboration (NAC) to offer ongoing opportunities to local artists and to encourage investment in the city’s creative economy. Now, with planning underway for the next phases of NAC, new collaborations have taken off in London and Berlin.

This spring, Audible’s team in the UK launched the UK Artist Collaboration, a program that spotlights underrepresented, emerging artists. As part of the program, the team introduced the Visible Artist Award, a free-to-enter competition judged by a panel of Audible employees and members from the community.

Aisha Glover, VP, Urban Innovation, who also helped launch the inaugural program in Newark, served as a juror in the selection process. “I just love reading the stories behind the concepts and designs,” she says. “What inspires the artists, what drove their creative interpretation of the briefing and how their identities shaped the final design.”

The winning piece, And the Flowers Have Time for Me by Huss Aya, was created to raise awareness of the struggles faced by queer Arabs globally and honor Arab activist Sarah Hegazi. Along with nine runners-up, it was featured in a June exhibition at London’s House of St Barnabas, a non-profit center and club devoted to people experiencing homelessness. Members of the art world, local communities, and press were invited to view the stunning works, giving the artists a critical networking opportunity.

The team also commissioned two acclaimed UK artists, Lakwena Maciver and David Shillinglaw, to collaborate with underrepresented communities in order to create large-scale art pieces for Audible’s London hub. Maciver led a workshop in collaboration with the Accumulate Art School for the Homeless, a non-profit organization with whom Audible has held career-training events in the past. She worked with several young people experiencing homelessness, weaving in the individual artworks they made, as well as words and phrases that came up in their discussions. One of those phrases even inspired the title for their resulting work, All My Life, I’ll Carry You.

Marice Cumber, Accumulate’s director and founder, reports that the experience’s impact on the participants was huge. “They were so elated!” she says, adding that it was especially meaningful that they were paid for their time. “We often get asked to do things and told to be grateful,” she says. “But every creative deserves to be paid for their work, homeless artists included.”

All My Life, I’ll Carry You now adorns Audible’s London hub, where, according to Chris Jones, director of production for our service in the UK, employees feel incredible “knowing we didn’t just buy a random piece of art, but rather sought real connection with people who are not usually given an opportunity.” He adds, “It’s helping them and inspiring us.”

For David Shillinglaw’s piece, Audible paired him with the UK’s National Literacy Trust (NLT). We’ve previously collaborated with the NLT on our Young Writers Programme, as well as podcasting workshops for young offenders, which gives them outlets for their voices as well as tools for creative careers upon release. Shillinglaw led a group at Grendon prison through a poetry workshop, intending to incorporate their poems into a visual piece.

Shillinglaw reports, “This project reminded me of the power of words to describe, share, and process the personal and the universal.” Audio installations were created to complement the piece, including one of the men at Grendon reading their poems. Shillinglaw also created a smaller version of the mural for the prison, so the group can see what they’ve contributed to and remember the impact their writing has made.

Audible emphasizes working shoulder to shoulder with communities to increase our impact. By collaborating with organizations like Accumulate and the National Literacy Trust, we’re able to make a difference for more people—and so are they. “I cannot overemphasize how huge it is for Accumulate to have worked with Audible,” Cumber says. “This will open up more opportunities for us to help people, and it’s creating these networks of support.”

Meanwhile, Audible also launched the Berlin Artist Collaboration, commissioning a multimedia installation from Berlin-based collective kling klang klong. The piece, Meandering River, focuses on themes of climate change and is displayed in the ground-floor windows of our Berlin studios alongside a QR code for a snippet from the Audible Original Planet A - Nur mal kurz die Welt retten: Staffel 1 (Planet A – Just Saving the World).

“We happen to have a beautiful street-level studio with an outward-facing display opportunity, so it was a perfect match for us,” says Michael Treutler, Head of Audible Studios EU. “It’s been amazing to see passersby stop and enjoy the artwork.” Our team chose Kling Klang Klong because the collective specializes in sonic experiences and because the group is comprised of local non-German artists, allowing us to highlight the diversity of backgrounds in Berlin’s creative community.

Artist collaborations are one of many ways Audible invests in creatives and commits to amplifying voices. “We do this every day through our content and with special initiatives like the Podcast Development Program or Indigenous Writers Circle,” says Glover. “And we are looking forward to exploring how to scale the ways in which we work with a range of creators.”