3rd edition
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THE COHORT & THEIR WORK
CLEAVE
The theme of this round is "Cleave".
A word that lives in two directions: to split apart and to stick together.
In October 2025, six audio creators from across the Arab world gathered at Feynan Ecolodge in Wadi Feynan, Jordan, organized by THE ECCO and supported by Goethe-Institut Amman.
After five days of writing sessions led by facilitators Phoebe McIndoe and Jasmin Bauomy, guided listening, a Bedouin coffee ceremony, desert hikes, and late-night stargazing, five of the six participants developed original audio works that move between journalism, documentary, and art.
The pieces below are what emerged: works that began as seeds in a desert landscape and were shaped, over months, into something stranger and more honest.
Photography (Jasmin Bauomy), Feynan Ecolodge, Wadi Feynan, Jordan, October 2025
PAN-ARAB COHORT
MUDDY WATERS / مي عكرة
HADEEL ALKUTTOB — AMMAN, JORDAN
ABOUT THE PIECE
Muddy Waters is the space between leaving and returning, where the ground keeps shifting and the body slowly adapts to belong without choosing only one world.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Hadeel Alkuttob (b. 1998, Amman, Jordan) is a sculptor whose practice centers on installation and embodied systems that integrate sound, material processes, and the human body. She received her BA in Sculpture from the University of Jordan and her MFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) as a Fulbright scholar.
SHORBET LESSAN ASSFOUR /
شوربة لسان عصفور
MARIAM BOCTOR – ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT
ABOUT THE PIECE
A contemporary retelling of the Isis-Osiris myth, inviting reflection on the heaviness of mother tongues.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Mariam Boctor is a part time cat and full time nerd based in Egypt. Their work has traversed public health, theater and storytelling, contemporary art, journalism, and translation.Their writing and translation has been published by The Outpost, Mada Masr, Arab Lit and the Contemporary Image Collective. They were part of the curatorial team that produced Botoun and a Lifetime of Wind at the Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo in 2019-2020. As part of Kusbarra Collective they have co-produced various workshops and events on food, care, labour and grief including their ongoing project Mukawen- an ode to hosting, cooking and collaborative practices. They are passionate about mythologies, ecology, land based and ancestral technologies and sleep
V6
YASMINE MAHJOUBI — CASABLANCA, MOROCCO
ABOUT THE PIECE
V6 maps out the cyclical nature of the author's creative process, from the ease of initial inspiration into the chaotic, overwhelming buildup of self-doubt.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Yasmine Mahjoubi is a Casablanca-based sound director and producer and a graduate in Film Studies from the University of Montreal. She has furthered her professional craft through selective residency programs, notably at ENS Louis-Lumière (2023) and the Résidence Méditerranée at La Friche la Belle de Mai (2025). In 2022, she joined the Les Bonnes Ondes studio, where she currently serves as sound director and head of production. In this role, she manages narrative, documentary, and radio projects while mentoring emerging talent. Her portfolio includes Soldat Bison (2024), a sound documentary centered on an intimate investigation of memory; In the Mind of a Thief (2022), a short documentary exploring the lives of two thieves in Casablanca; and the award-winning sound documentary on Parisian myths, The Sound of the Ghosts (Mimesis Documentary Festival 2024).
ADAPTING / تأقلُم
BASANT SAMHOUT – CAIRO, EGYPT
ABOUT THE PIECE
An honest conversation between father and daughter, exploring new family dynamics while looking back at the old.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Basant Samhout is a Managing Producer at The Enterprise Company in Egypt. She has played different roles on a number of Arabic and English podcasts at Sowt Media, working with a variety of clients including AJ English, Doha Debates, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Qatar Foundation, iHeart Arabic, and LAPIS Group. As a producer, her work has spanned talent scouting, timeline management, account management, and guest relations, ensuring high-quality productions from concept to delivery. She is a passionate producer, always on the lookout for ways to best present a story. She also dabbles in some voice over work including playing a hyperactive squirrel with a penchant for chaos, a wild and jealous witch, and has done multiple narration pieces in both English & Arabic.
HOW TO HEAR THE SKY /
كيف تسمع السماء
LILI SARAYRAH — JORDAN / US
ABOUT THE PIECE
An exploration of Lili's grandmother’s unheard voice, and a serenade on the practice of belonging.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Lili Sarayrah is a violinist, storyteller and curator who grew up between Jordan and the United States. She has performed in countless community settings as well as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and the Berlin and Paris Philharmonies. She is a published author, has traveled to six continents and is relocating to London on a Global Talent Visa. lilisarayrah.com.
SELECTED PUBLIC ENTRIES
Alongside the Pan-Arab cohort, THE ECCO invited open submissions responding to the theme CLEAVE. The following two pieces were selected from the public call.
NIGHT BIRDS
JEFF EMTMAN — BERLIN, GERMANY / USA
ABOUT THE PIECE
It's rare to see a night bird alone. If you do, things might get inexplicable. They're big things that move in ways that are hard for humans to comprehend. Piece is fiction, Jeff has never actually been punched by a bird. Some of the rest of it is true though.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Jeff Emtman is an artist and sound designer who also likes teaching. Creator of Here Be Monsters Podcast and co-creator of Neutrinowatch. Jeff was also part of the very first cohort of THE ECCO.
FAITH IS A CHOICE
MO ISU – LAGOS, NIGERIA
ABOUT THE PIECE
The moment that cracked open my fear of death, and left me with a simple, uneasy truth about faith.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Mo Isu is a writer, producer and sound artist based in Lagos Nigeria. He tells character-led stories in search of moments of hope. Currently, he produces youth stories at Radio Workshop. His work has been featured on Audio Flux and Inherited podcast. He was a 2023 participant of the École Nationale Supérieure Louis-Lumière Sound Documentary Summer Program.
BONUS
ZEPHYRA & THE WHISPER /
زفيرة والهمس
JASMIN BAUOMY — BERLIN, GERMANY / EGYPT
ABOUT THE PIECE
A magical realism story about ideas, attention, and the digital age.
Written and narrated by Jasmin Bauomy in Egyptian Arabic with English subtitles with help from Basant Samhout and Mariam Boctor. The original idea came out of a commission for Audioflux. This piece has also been broadcast on Deutschlandfunk in German and interpreted and adapted for the Arab context.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Jasmin Bauomy creates audio stories and helps others do the same. She just really wanted to make this piece in Arabic for this round as a personal challenge.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
This retreat and cohort were made possible through partnership with Goethe-Institut Amman. The Goethe-Institut is Germany's cultural institute, active worldwide to promote German language learning and foster international cultural exchange. In Amman, the institute supports artists and cultural practitioners across the region, creating platforms for dialogue and creative collaboration. Their commitment to audio storytelling and emerging voices made this pan-Arab cohort possible.
The ECCO team supporting cohort participants in their creative work were Jasmin Bauomy and Phoebe McIndoe.
PHOEBE MCINDOE
Phoebe is a UK-based radio journalist, sound artist, and producer, nominated for Producer of the Year at the 2025 British Audio Production Awards. She produces for the BBC and founded Small Audio Art, a platform for experimental audio work. Within THE ECCO, she leads creative writing sessions and mentors participants in shaping immersive, multi-layered storytelling.
JASMIN BAUOMY
Jasmin is a German-Egyptian multimedia journalist and podcast producer based in Berlin. She founded THE ECCO, an international network for audio storytellers, and has led multiple cohorts including this pan-Arab cohort. Past participants' work has been published by BBC, NPR, and Deutschlandfunk.
IMPRESSIONS OF THE FULL PROGRAM
Over the course of several months, this cohort gathered virtually and in person, moving from initial ideas to finished pieces. These images capture moments from the Jordan retreat and the creative process that followed—workshops, conversations, recording sessions, and the quiet work of shaping stories into sound.
