MAE-LI EVANS - selected Work excerpts
Mae-Li Evans is an audiomaker creating soundart, radio, podcast, and audio tours. She grew up in Hackney, East London - and still lives there.
Winner as part of PodPod’s cohort ‘Faces to Watch 2023’
COMMISSIONED AUDIO ART
Shortcuts BBC Radio 4 (2019-2025)
Between the Ears BBC Radio 3 (2024)
My shortform soundart works have been commissioned and played on Short Cuts, the home for short-documentaries and creative adventures in sound presented by Josie Long.
Works: ’Go South’ ‘And to start… ‘ ‘The Backrooms’ and ‘Totality’
This lead to the invitation and commission from Falling Tree productions to make, ‘Tiny Sliver of Blue’ aired on the ‘In Between the Ears’ strand on BBC Radio 3, the space for innovative and thought-provoking radio features that make adventurous use of sound and explore a wide variety of subjects.
PEACE PALACE (2025)
I was sound designer for an experimental soundwalk devised by artist Lina 은지 Chang. The project investigates the life of Korean activist 이준 (Yi-Jun), who was found dead along with two other Korean political emissaries shortly after they were denied entry to the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907. Searching for alternative explanations for how and why these political figures died — Chang visited key locations in The Hague and recorded interviews with local residents asking what they know about his story. The soundwalk asks its participants to consider the historical blindness that arises from international conflict and slippages that occur when oral history disappears.
Producer: Lina Eunji Chang, Pansori Sound Studio
Sound-Design and Composition: Mae-Li Evans
Thank you to the Creative Industries Fund NL for their support.
Screenshot, BBC Radio 4. (2023- present)
I am a returning freelance producer for Screenshot, the primetime Friday night offering broadcast on BBC Radio 4 diving into the universe of film and television.
My episodes include, ’Amelie’, ‘Fishing’ ‘Translation,’ ‘Survival,’ ‘Studio Ghibli,’ ‘ Powell and Pressburger,’ ‘Do the Right Thing’ ‘Films the Changed the World’ ‘Lovers on the Run’ ‘Home Movies’
Monocle On Design (2020-2025)
I was the producer on the always on, weekly 30 min magazine format podcast, crossing architecture, graphics, craft, and furniture stories from around the world. I created over 250 episodes as well as weekly miniepisodes during my tenure. Created through collaborating with inhouse editors, international contributors, sourcing guests, interviewing, through to the edit and sound design.
‘Oh Yoko!’ Archive on 4 strand (2023) BBC Radio 4, producer
I produced a feature length audio documentary about Yoko Ono timed to mark her 90th birthday mixing BBC Archive and new interviews, The documentary recieved a two page write up in the Radio Times, interviewing the presenter.
“Dragon-lady”. “Witch”. “The woman who broke up the Beatles”. These are some of the labels that have been commonly used to describe Yoko Ono, a pioneering musician, artist, and activist who can plausibly claim to be the most maligned and misunderstood figure in the history of popular culture.
On this edition of Archive On 4 you’ll hear Yoko Ono in her own words, via old BBC tape. Host Jennifer Lucy Allan, a music writer and broadcaster specialising in experimental sound, also assembles a collection of Ono's peers, friends, and admirers.
Get Up Stand Up Now (2019)
I was Producer of two podcast episodes for Somerset House, for their summer exhibition Get Up Stand Up Now.
Nominated for Best Arts & Culture Podcast - British Podcast Awards 2020.
Calling planet earth! Artist Yinka Shonibare CBE, acclaimed saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, fashion designer Mowalola Ogunlesi, and Get Up, Stand Up Now curator Zak Ové explore themes around Black futures and afro-futurism. Presented by spoken word artist Joshua Idehen.
Dream to Change the World Listen here
Get Up, Stand Up Now curator Zak Ové and Gaylene Gould, British Film Institute (Head of Cinema & Events) are in conversation exploring Pressure, the 1976 film from Horace Ové CBE, its production and legacy. Artist Sonia Boyce OBE RA discusses her work as an artist and activist starting in the 1980’s with the Black Arts Movement. Spoken word artist Joshua Idehen creatively responds to the themes of activism, change and hope.
I produced and sound designed a 6 part podcast series, Milk on the Move, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The show explores milk’s deep cultural roots, evolving scientific narratives and the systems that shape its production today. Together with researchers, dairy producers and consumers, we uncover the fascinating interaction of tradition, knowledge and morality that makes milk so much more than just an everyday drink.
Hosted by Johanna Zetterström-Sharp and JC Niala.
Sakamoto - Art is long, Life is short, Sunday Feature (2024) BBC Radio 3
I produced a long form audio documentary on the famous Japanese musician. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s reputation as a genius composer and musical innovator seems assured, although we are only just beginning to comprehend his oeuvre. Sakamoto coexisted in the worlds of cinema, glitzy celebrity, cutting-edge technology and avant-garde art. A year after his passing, broadcaster Nick Luscombe reflects on Sakamoto’s legacy, and asks what was so distinct and important about his prescient vision.
Presented by Nick Luscombe
Produced by Mae-Li Evans
Exec Produced by Jack Howson
A Peanut & Crumb production for BBC Radio 3
The Root of the Matter | 5 part podcast Series (2022)
Wellcome Collection
I co-produced this five part series
Our lives are intrinsically entangled with the plant world: through the food we eat, the medicines we use, and the spaces we inhabit. In this five-part series, writer and maker JC Niala explores what the plant world has to teach us about being human.
Join JC in conversation with growers, scientists, writers and activists on a journey through five different landscapes, from the familiarity of the garden to the seemingly hostile wasteland. We’ll take a closer look at the entanglements and stories underpinning the plant world to understand how plants can provide a lens on human health, history and belonging.
Presented by JC Niala
Lead Producer: Alannah Chance , Producer: Mae-Li Evans
Music and sound design by Alice Boyd
Safe Light | short film Sound Design
Dir. Greg Bushell | UK | 2025
I sound designed the short film, Safe Light, collaborating with London-based visual artist Greg Bushell. He travelled to Kyiv to capture how the war on Ukraine has affected the Ukrainian photographer Vic Bákin, based in Kyiv. Finding refuge in his makeshift darkroom, Bákin confronts unprocessed memories of his new reality for his latest photo series and book Epitome, recognising scarred facades and the stains of conflict in the tactile imperfections of analog formats.
The film was picked up by NOWNESS and premiered on their website.
Tomás Saraceno In Collaboration: Web(s) of Life (2023)
Producer and sound designer: Intro from the artist + 3 part audio accompaniment to the exhibition
A living, collaborative and multi-species exhibition that delves into how different life forms, technologies and energy systems are connected in the climate emergency.
Tomás Saraceno is a multimedia artist whose work embraces interdisciplinarity and interconnectedness across ecosystems. Saraceno’s first UK solo exhibition invites participants to consider different forms of knowledge and non-human perspectives through a range of artworks, prompts and experiences which extend past the walls of Serpentine South, into The Royal Parks and beyond.
The Royal Parks Serpentine South Gallery
1 June - 10 September 2023
Orchard Gardens: Soundtracks to our lives | Kin Structures (2022)
I helped set up and run a Pop up recording studio + produced an hour long music mix from memories and reflections collected with residents from across the estate. From Frank Sinatra to Childish Gambino, via Whitney Houston and Sonic the Hedgehog, this is one hour of sounds and stories from Orchard Gardens.
Produced by Kin Structures and Mae-Li Evans, with support from Lina Chang.
April 2022
SOMERSET HOUSE: SONIC HISTORIES (2022)
I was Audio producer for a 12 part audio tour of Somerset House, featuring commissions responding to the historic site by Ava Wong-Davies, Sabrina Mahfouz, Laura Lomas and Rex Obano.
Explore the hidden places and dynamic history of Somerset House with Sonic Histories, an audio experience using specially commissioned sound stories evoking the architecture, people and events that have shaped the building in its various guises. The twelve unique stories explore a rich tapestry of subjects, from a controversial seventeenth century chapel to the role of Somerset House in WWII.
A Seat in Soho | Empathy Museum (2022)
I was commissioned by The Empathy Museum, to produce two audio portraits for the project, documenting the actress Sheila Ruskin, and film producer, Colin Vaines. This audio was featured in an multimedia exhibition, A Seat in Soho’ in Ganton Street that shared stories of residents in this iconic part of London, that wove in themes of housing security, urban nature, and post pandemic living.