Talking to Strangers

Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, better known as the Kitchen Sisters, tend to find their subjects in the everyday. They sit for hours, “practically in the interviewee’s lap,” listening intently for those moments when speech sparkles with life. They haunt hidden kitchens and Tupperware parties, or gather lost and found sound, then create tapestries of voice, sound, and music. Nikki and Davia write of radio’s power to foster human connection. Provocatively, they describe their relationships with their subjects as “a sort of ventriloquism—we speak through other people and other people speak through us.”