Lard

The then director of Radio Wave, Iva Jonášová, sensed that this was a strong topic and an authentic and capable author. She connected Ridina with dramaturge Veronika Ruppert and sound master Jaroslav Pokorný, and the series began to take shape. Ridina published a public call on social media, which was answered by dozens of women willing to anonymously share their experiences with body shaming and the problems associated with accepting their own bodies. Ridina recorded their statements in the form of intimate conversations taped on a recorder. After analysing dozens of hours of material, they then worked together with the dramaturge to create a thematic axis for the series and, minute by minute, selected and composed the individual thematic parts of the podcast.

Since this was the author’s first podcast experience, part of the process was to find a form and position of the spoken word that would be comfortable for Ridina and the listeners. Ridina was also involved in the sound graphics for the podcast; the musical motifs, which were handled and, the same as the whole podcast, mixed by sound master Jaroslav Pokorný, are based on the author’s vocal improvisations on a topic. The multitude of anonymous testimonies of women with various body issues was organically followed on by a visual in which women’s bodies are in a staggered movement. In addition to the station’s website and the podcast environment, the visuals were also worked on intensively in the Facebook and Instagram environment, where they were linked to powerful quotes from the podcast in the form of audiograms. 

The publication of the Lard series sparked a huge avalanche of reactions from listeners and the media. Ridina received dozens of offers to be interviewed about the podcast in the Czech and Slovak media, as well as hundreds of thank you emails and stories from women who were determined to talk about their appearance-related traumas. 

That’s why the author decided to follow on from the podcast in her other activities. In addition to the theatrical performance of the same name, which was created in parallel with the podcast, Ridina decided to start an independent non-profit platform called Moje tělo je moje (My Body is Mine), which has the ambition to open up the topic of body positivity in a society-wide context, also for men and the most vulnerable, children and adolescents. 

Radio Wave decided to follow up on the theme of body positivity with a series dedicated to male body image, based on the response to Lard, and thus another very successful series, Hrana (Edge), was produced by documentary maker Lukáš Houdek under the dramaturgical direction of Daniel Kupšovský and Veronika Ruppert.

Basic Information  

Lard is Ridina Ahmed’s series about the social pressure on women’s appearance and the varied and complex ways to accept one’s own body. In the podcast, we meet dozens of women who responded to Ridina’s public call via social media - they openly talk about their traumas, their strong and weak moments, and their internal struggles with others’ and their own expectations. The six chapters with women’s personal confessions are followed by three interviews with experts. The series opens up the topic of the relationship to one’s own body in different contexts, with individual episodes of the Lard podcast focusing on relationships and sex, motherhood, work and careers, and beauty ideals, as well as physical and mental health. 

The series was created at the instigation of the author Ridina Ahmed, for whom body acceptance and coping with body shaming is a strong personal theme. It was her first podcast experience. Thanks to technical and dramaturgical support and cooperation with the Radio Wave team, we managed to create a series that provoked strong reactions from listeners and sparked a society-wide discussion on the topic of body shaming and body positivity in the Czech Republic. The Lard podcast was the first media project to open up this topic in a comprehensive and systematic way in the Czech environment.

As of 4 May 2022, the Lard series had 254,000 downloads (on radio platforms and third parties). After listening to the series, hundreds of female listeners contacted the author via the e-mail address sadlo@rozhlas.cz, saying that the series has changed their lives in a fundamental way and helped them cope with the pressure of their environment, as well as their ideas about the perfect female body.

The series was released starting on 21 January 2021 at the wave.cz/sadlo website; it is also available on the mujRozhlas mobile app and other podcast apps. In the form of shorter excerpts from individual episodes, it was also released in a podcast environment in the Radio Wave stream. Each episode lasts about 30 minutes.

Listen the document at Prix Bohemia Radio festival!

When: Thursday 13^th October 2022 | 13:40 – 14:00 | listening session
Where: Film hall, Arts Centre UP
Entrance: Free admission with accreditation

Look at the detailed program of the listening session.

All podcasts are available here.