Sophie Hope talks to Karen Pilkington about the origins of the Village Hub project in Plymouth, and what it has gone on to achieve.
Arlene Goldbard & François Matarasso discuss the difficult conditions community-based artists & groups must work under as austerity bites.
Marley Starskey Butler, a multidisciplinary artist and social worker, talks about workshops as spaces for listening.
Owen Kelly looks at some practical examples of changes we can make and tools we can use.
This year, if a month has five Fridays, we will find another podcast that excites us and spread the word. This month we look at episode 40 of Ferment Radio.
Sophie Hope brings together 4 people connected to the MA Art and Social Practice run by the University of Highlands and Islands in Scotland.
Arlene Goldbard talks with Sebastian Ruth about how classical music can connect with community arts and cultural democracy.
Jody Wood talks about listening as a practice of care – where to care is not to cure.
Owen Kelly looks at the evidence for considering three different dimensions of the digital tools we use.
Sophie Hope and Fabiola Fiocco discuss a workshop they led in Rome in February.
Arlene Goldbard talks with David Francis about the Traditional Music Forum in Scotland, and much more.
Disabled artist and drag king Lady Kitt talks to host Hannah Kemp-Welch about their practice of ‘mess making as social glue’.
Owen Kelly suggests that we update our ideas about the web to reclaim its radical, collaborative nature.
Brendan Jackson talks about the finale of the Jubilee Archives programme and the structure of Laundry.
Arlene Goldbard and Owen Kelly discuss the secret (and not so secret) spirituality that fuels their work.
Sam Metz talks about listening beyond the aural, sharing examples from their work with non-verbal participants.
Owen Kelly suggests three approaches that we might usefully develop in the coming year.
This year Miaaw celebrates its fifth anniversary and so every time we find a fifth Friday in a month we will relive an episode from our history.
Sophie Hope talks with Raluca Voinea about a joint venture of a group of artists, curators, theorists, economists and others in Romania.
Arlene Goldbard talks with Judith Marcuse about the growth & hibernation of Canadian community engaged art.
Edwin Mingard explores social change through moving image. Here he talks about the need to turn off ‘broadcast mode’.
Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk with Susan Jones about visual arts, arts policy, structural flaws, and and artists’ livelihoods.
This month Owen Kelly talks with Zeynep Falay von Flittner about transitions design and systems thinking.
François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard talk with Ralph Lister from Take Art, in rural Somerset, England.
Albert Potrony introduces his participatory arts practice, describing a recent project with young fathers in Gateshead.
Owen Kelly argues that corporations try to extend and merge the definitions of copyright and trademarks. This hurts creators, stifles creativity, and harms the public domain.
Sophie Hope talks with Sam Trotman from the Scottish Sculpture Workshop and asks her about SSW’s philosophy and practice.
Many people take democracy for granted, but what is it really: certainly more than majority rule and voting every once in a while?
Owen Kelly reads extracts from The Careless Society to contextualise the arguments that John McKnight proposes.
Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly discuss whether Bill Willingham can put Fables into the public domain, and what it might mean for co-creation.
This year Miaaw celebrates its fifth anniversary and so every time we find a fifth Friday in a month we will relive an episode from our history.
Owen Kelly talks with Steve Trow and Chris Baldwin about the idea of cultural capital, and the issues it raises in the West Midlands and in Blugaria.
Caron Atlas discusses her work with Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts New York (NOCD-NY) and Arts & Democracy, and much, much more.
Ed Carroll discusses the Faro Convention, the role of a “framework convention”, and the work of the Faro Convention Network.
Owen Kelly looks at some of the implications of Cory Doctorow’s neologism “enshittification” and the discussions around it.
Will Weigler, community-engaged theatre maker, writer and storyteller, discusses his role as official rapporteur for the ICAF Festival.
Maribel Legarda & Beng Cabangon of the Philippines Educational Theater Association, founded in 1967, talk about PETA’s creative strategies.
Owen Kelly reads excerpts from Tools for Conviviality to make sense of the arguments that Illich proposes.
Sophie Hope recorded this live report on the final day of the Rural School of Economics summer camp in July 2023 in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire.
Owen Kelly talks with Kim Wide, the founder of Take A Part, based in Plymouth in the UK.
François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard talk about topics that are burning a hole in their brains: us vs. them; what cultural democracy means and why some people can’t get it; being a little braver…
Owen Kelly talks to Hannah Kemp-Welch about interfaces between feminism & ham radio, and the mysteries of ‘natural radio’.
Collective Encounters discuss their work and the provocations they created for The World Transformed in Liverpool in September 2022.
This year Miaaw celebrates its fifth anniversary and so every time we find a fifth Friday in a month we will relive an episode from our history. This month we slide back in time to December 21, 2018.
Sophie Hope talks to Koh Hui Ling and Han Xuemei.
Arlene Goldbard & François Mattarasso talk with TEAM about A Proper Ordinary Miracle, and other recent projects from National Theatre Wales.
Andrew Gryf Paterson talks to Owen Kelly about Pixelache’s involvement with Wikimedia & auto-archiving as a core part of cultural activity.
Sophie Hope talks to Owen Kelly about why he wrote Cultural Democracy Now, and what he hopes will result from its publication.
Owen Kelly & Charlie Fox discuss working with a non-human entity, the Marseilles River Project, and the work of les Collectif des Gammares.
Arlene Goldbard and François Mattarasso talk with Ben Fink and Kate Fowler about Art in A Democracy, from Roadside Theater in Appalachia.
Owen Kelly talks to Russell Southwood about his recent book Africa 2.0.
Owen Kelly talks to Sophie Hope and Henry Mulhall about their plans for Cards on the Table.
In a 4th report from the ICAF Festival, Owen Kelly talks to Bonface Beti, about his workshop Music is at the heart of African creativity.
Sophie Hope & Owen Kelly talk to Kerrie Schaeffer about her presentations at ICAF on documenting community performance processes.
Owen Kelly talks with Ed Carroll and Vita Gelūnienė about The Cabbage Field community opera and the work of Zemuju Sanciu Bendruomene.
Sophie and Owen meet at the end of ICAF to look back over what they experienced.
This year Miaaw celebrates its fifth anniversary and so every time a month has five Fridays we will take the opportunity to look back at some memorable episodes from our short history.
Owen Kelly talks with three of the artists who participated in Topos 3: Siniša Ilić, Ahilan Ratnamohan, and Stanislav Shuripa.
A conversation between Dusica Drazic and Anna Titova.
A conversation between Siniša Ilić and Ahilan Ratnamohan
A Conversation between Zorka Wollny and Siniša Ilić.
A conversation between Zorka Wollny and Anna Titova.
A conversation between Ahilan Ratnamohan and Stanislav Shuripa.
Arlene Goldbard and François Mattarasso discuss what community-based art can do.
Sophie Hope contemplates the bedpan – “this embarrassing, awkward object” – from different angles.
Owen Kelly looks at the web of arguments put forward by Jason “Propaganda” Petty in his book Terraform: Building a Better World.
Sophie Hope and Marc Herbst discuss cultural movements and their crossover with political movements
Arlene Goldbard and François Mattarasso talk with Beverly Naidus about her life and work.
Owen Kelly inquiries into the nature of apology in an age of instant opinion and social media.
David Moscow talks to Owen Kelly about how he moved from Bernie Sanders’ 2016 media campaign to the television series & book From Scratch.
Owen Kelly and Irina Mutt look at the 20th anniversary celebrations through the words of Antti Ahonen, one of the founding members.
François Matarasso & Arlene Goldbard talk to Jasmina Ibrahimovic about Rotterdams Wijktheater & the International Community Arts Festival.
Owen Kelly & Tomas Träskman discuss micronations as experiments in living, as performance art, and as political activism.
François Matarasso presents an audio essay examining the depoliticisation of community art in Britain between 1970 and 2011.
December 22, 1949. An episode of the police procedural series Dragnet. A boy goes missing, along with the rifle he was due to get for Xmas.
This episode occurs one or two days before the annual Christmas celebrations and so we opted for a festive podcast starring Sherlock Holmes.
François Matarasso & Arlene Goldbard discuss Arlene’s forthcoming book, In The Camp of Angels of Freedom: What Does It Mean to Be Educated?
Owen Kelly & Ken Worpole look at cults and sects: at how we can define these, why they spread, and what this means for cultural democracy.
François Matarasso explains why, as an area of conscious policy, culture has never been more important to democratic states than it is today.
Ana Laura López de la Torre talks us through the ‘extensión’ function of the Universidad de la República with details of a current project.
François Matarasso & Arlene Goldbard talk to Carol Bebelle, cofounder of Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans.
Owen Kelly looks at the lessons we can learn from Bhimrao Ambedkar, Dalit anti-caste campaigner & writer of most of the Indian constitution.
François Matarasso on Orcadian culture: “the unique creation of interaction between people and place, coming and going, over centuries”.
Ana Laura López de la Torre discusses the history and democratic structures of the Universidad de la República, Uruguay, with Sophie Hope.
Yuriy Vulkovsky talks about his decades of experience working with communities and institutions in Bulgaria and nearby states.
Ken Worpole and Owen Kelly inquire into the nature of social experiments in living, ranging from self-invented communes to garden cities that arise from philanthropy and public policy.
François Matarasso discusses music and social change. He argues that the “social outcomes – a word I prefer to impact – of music making are real, complex and profound. They can be transformative, even life changing. They are not, however, only positive.”
We go back to June 3, 1956 to listen to an episode of the western series Gunsmoke. A pacifist arrives in town pursued by two men who want to kill him.
Beverley Harvey & Brendan Jackson, co-founders of the Jubilee Archive project, discuss the archive, its purposes, and its future.
François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard discuss power in the context of cultural institutions.
Owen Kelly inquires into the heated arguments between proponents of the germ theory and the terrain theory of disease transmission.
François Matarasso discusses the differences between folk culture and heritage and how we might safeguard our intangible heritage.
Arlene Tucker explains her practice and her decision to turn her house into a project where people can stay, play and work.
Joe Lambert talks with Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso about Storycenter.
In this episode Owen Kelly expands on a lecture he first presented at the Max Planck Society in Hamburg to inquire into the nature of the metaverse and ask what Meta actually has in mind for us.
François Matarasso argues that “The values and practices of contemporary European culture are still defined by ideas that emerged during the Enlightenment, and the period of industrialisation and imperialism with which it is associated.”
We go back to June 21, 1950 to listen to episode 15 of 2000 Plus & learn about the future that people in the 1950s looked forward to.
Delving into the Miaaw archives we catch Sophie Hope talking with Sally Labern, an artist and activist living and working in north London.
Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with David Ramy and Bruno Homem of SAMP in Portugal about co-creating original opera with incarcerated youth.
Owen Kelly looks at some aspects of the relationships between cultural democracy and politics and the importance of the idea of a “democracy of species” that moves culture away from the Western idea of “Man vs Nature” and towards a cultural democracy that grows from the earth.