Issue 23 | August 2024

Welcome to the August 2024 edition of The Miaaw Monthly which provides a few pointers to things you might like to explore, including (but not limited to) our podcasts.

These represent one way to have (hopefully) interesting conversations about some of the things we care about. Please spread the word as widely as you can, and encourage people to subscribe to The Miaaw Monthly.

If you have anything that you want to include in The Miaaw Monthly, or discuss in the podcasts, then please email us at monthly@miaaw.net and we will be happy to collaborate.


TODAY’S PODCAST

Last month Sophie Hope promised a second summer surprise for today’s episode of Common Practice and this morning it arrived!

Owen and Sophie have re-edited and remixed a pivotal episode from 2019 in which Nick Mahony and Stephen Pritchard talk about cultural democracy from two very different perspectives.

This starts our look at possible opportunities for cultural democracy under the new Labour government in Britain.


THE AUGUST PODCASTS

Every Friday a podcast appears at approximately 12:12 Helsinki time (which you may like to think of as 10:12 UTC).

Sometimes we get so eager that they appear an hour or two early to allow for any lag across the internet. Mostly they arrive on time. With that in mind, here are the podcasts that will arrive in June.

Friday August 2: Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | Episode 74

In the last few weeks Nicholas Serota and Susan Jones have both published articles about the need for radical changes to the way culture is organised and funded, intended to contribute to arguments addressed to the new Labour government in the UK.

In this episode Owen Kelly interviews Susan Jones about her essay A New Deal?, and asks her about the similarities and differences between that and Serota’s essay Britain needs a cultural reboot. Here’s my five-point plan to fix the arts.

Friday August 9: Ways of Listening | Episode 10

‘Conceptual Art and Teaching’ is a project initiated by Jorge Lucero, artist and Professor of Art Education at the University of Illinois.

Jorge joins Hannah Kemp-Welch for the tenth episode of Ways of Listening to consider listening within critical pedagogy and as a daily practice. He draws attention to both the humility and the ‘slowness’ needed for listening.

Friday August 16: A Culture of Possibility | Episode 43

In episode 42 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with France Trépanier and Chris Creighton-Kelly, based in British Columbia.

France is a visual artist, curator and researcher of Kanien’kéha:ka and French ancestry; Chris is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and cultural critic born in the UK with South Asian/British roots.

Together, they direct Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires, a multi-year arts initiative whose main objective is to place Indigenous arts at the centre of the Canadian arts system through gatherings, public presentations, incubation projects, residencies, research and more aimed at generating new knowledge.

Friday August 23: Common Practice | Episode 38

Sophie Hope talks to creative collective Spit Game UK about their current exhibition My Kind of Black at Science Gallery,

Friday August 30: Friday Number 5 | Episode 15

For the fifth Friday of the month we feature a guest episode from another podcast that we think will appeal to our listeners. We feel certain that this one will!


LISTENING

All our podcasts are available from Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Overcast, RadioPublic, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Stitcher.

You can also listen to them at the miaaw.net website where you will find additional links, notes, and references accompanying each episode.

You will also find a full archive of all the previous podcasts there.


OFF SITE

Britain needs a cultural reboot

Nicholas Serota has done a lot of things. He “was appointed Chair of Arts Council England in February 2017. He is also a member of the Board of the BBC.

Previously he was Director of Tate between 1988 and 2017. He has been a member of the Visual Arts Advisory Committee of the British Council, a Trustee of the Architecture Foundation and a commissioner on the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. He was a member of the Olympic Delivery Authority which was responsible for building the Olympic Park in East London for the London 2012 Summer Olympics.”

On July 14 The Observer published an essay of his entitled Britain needs a cultural reboot. This will feature in the discussion in the August edition of Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse.

If you want to get ahead, and you don’t read The Observer, then you can click the link above and read it right now.


Reconsidering Radical Collage

Peter Kennard has a retrospective exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. You can read about it here.

You will find his work on display at the Whitechapel Gallery until January 2025.


No surprises in new UBI results

We have mentioned UBI a number of times and now the results of the world’s largest trial to date have arrived. And they say approximately what you think they would say. And approximately what those people who oppose universal basic income because “it rewards laziness” would rather it didn’t say.

You can read a summary of the results in The Register, where the article contains links to some other related material.

The rabbit hole starts here!


A solution without a problem, part 3,456

Amanda Hoover has written an article called The Metaverse Was Supposed to Be Your New Office. You’re Still on Zoom in in Wired.

It says more or less what the title implies it will say, but in more detail and with some twists. You may enjoy it.


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