Tropospheric Propagation

In collaboration with Jamie Zimchek. The Non-Museum Project: Radio Liberty, Platja de Pals, Spain

2026, sublimation print on chiffon, five pieces, each 36" x 54"

​​​Shannon Cleere and Jamie Zimchek brought their research-based practices together for Tropospheric Propagation at Radio Liberty in Catalonia, Spain, a collaborative site-specific work with The Non-Museum Project. Cropped images from the Hoover Institute’s Radio Free Europe archives form the background for these five images, digitally printed on semi-transparent textiles. Overlaid across this imagery are excerpts from a recently declassified document that detail a meeting with George Kennan in 1951. A leading American diplomat and proponent of America’s Containment Strategy during the Cold War, Kennan saw Radio Liberty as one means to limit Communist expansion with transmissions that were a combination of anti-communist propaganda and news updates. As our way of processing news and messaging shifts to digital, radio’s role in disseminating specific narratives has been eclipsed by newer technology, but many of the underlying issues with state-run media remain.

Over the course of the three days at the now-abandoned Radio Liberty facility in Platja de Pals, Spain, these pieces fluttered in front of a decade’s worth of graffiti messaging. Now they’re frozen in a photograph, already part of the remembered past.