May 16, 2025
Tags: first people, healing, history, MAGA, thriving
Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk to Lori Pourier, founder and Senior Fellow at the First Peoples Fund.
May 9, 2025
Tags: learning, London College of Communication, symposium
Hannah Kemp-Welch recorded this, the final episode of Ways of Listening, at the symposium ‘Listening Together: Practices for Community-Centred Listening’ at London College of Communication in February 2025.
Our Summer Reading mini-series begins with Owen Kelly and David Morley discussing Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century, written by Christian Caryl and published in 2014.
April 25, 2025
Tags: Cornwall, language, management, plumbing, rewilding
Owen Kelly talks to Sovay Berriman about Cornwall, the conservation and nurturing of its language, rewilding, the dilemmas of arts management, and the connections linking all these.
April 18, 2025
Tags: foundations, global majority, mental health, participatory arts
Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk David Cutler about how and why the Foundation chose to focus on Arts & Mental Health; the impact they’re having; and how their work fits into the larger arts funding landscape.
April 11, 2025
Tags: learning, London College of Communication, symposium
Hannah Kemp-Welch chairs a panel featuring Beverley Bennett & Sam Metz at a symposium titled ‘Listening Together: Practices for Community-Centred Listening’.
April 4, 2025
Tags: forest, future, history, possibilities
In the final episode of this Special Edition, Sophie Hope interviews Youth Landscapers’ Producer Rebecca Lee along with members Alfie Ropson and Georgia Harris-Marsh, and board member Jo Wheeler.
March 28, 2025
Tags: funding, future, inspiration, negotiation
Sophie Hope and Hannah Kemp-Welch discuss possible futures for socially engaged arts practice with Lucy Elmes, Owen Griffiths, and Kim Wide.
March 21, 2025
Tags: community, hope, imagination, performance, vision
Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about a remarkable book, Engineers of the Imagination: The Welfare State Handbook, first published in 1983 and still extremely influential.
Hannah Kemp-Welch talks to Hector MacInnes about a project in HMP Inverness.
March 7, 2025
Tags: forest, history, possibility, songs
In 2023, YLC created The Stage of Possibility – a vibrant, democratic space designed, built and curated to showcase stories and voices from the National Forest at Timber Festival. In this episode they share their experiences of the National Forest, through the songs they made and performed.
February 28, 2025
Tags: inspiration, mediation, negotiation, skateboarding
Ben Bordwick, Sophie Hope, Hannah Kemp-Welch and Leo Valls discuss how wheeled users might play freely in the city. How can we ensure more access and equality in the development of public spaces? How can we make certain that the voices of young people become embedded in planning processes?
February 21, 2025
Tags: communication, community, diversity, hope, intention
Arlene Goldbard & François Matarasso talk about key questions for the future.
February 14, 2025
Tags: gender, inequality, photography, rural, Scotland, Yorkshire
Hannah Kemp-Welch talks to Joanne Coates about her recent work with young women in the Yorkshire Dales and Orkney, Scotland.
An online conversation between Jo Wheeler, who helped initiate YLC and 3 of its Youth Council: Kris Kirkwood, Isaac Munslow and Alfie Ropson, & .
January 31, 2025
Tags: copyleft, creative commons, music, sound, tribe of noise
This episode we start another irregular series of podcasts of music issued under Creative Commons licences: this time almost exclusively from the venerable Tribe of Noise site.
January 24, 2025
Tags: colonialism, horizontalism, land, nature, socially engaged art
Hannah Kemp-Welch & Sophie Hope talk with Nadia Shaikh and Mark Teh about how art and culture intersects with the right to access and use land.
Owen Kelly joins Arlene Goldbard to discuss a report entitled “State of Culture” from Culture Action Europe.
January 10, 2025
Tags: architecture, biography, London, Poplar
Hannah Kemp-Welch talks to Angharad Davies about her long term work with communities at Rurban in Poplar, London.
January 3, 2025
Tags: anarchy, experience, politics, society, theory
Owen Kelly talks to Ken Worpole about just some of the adventures of Colin Ward during his adventurous and varied life.
December 20, 2024
Tags: food, justice, land, Scotland, solidarity
Arlene Goldbard talks with Clementine Sandison, an artist who works with people in Scotland to build solidarity networks.
December 13, 2024
Tags: creative enterprise, economy, equity, power, socially engaged art
Hannah Kemp-Welch & Sophie Hope talk with Kathrin Bohm, Dan Edelstyn and Hilary Powell about how creative enterprise models can bring communities greater fiscal equity.
Owen Kelly talks to John Phillips and Clive Russell about the Museum of Unrest: how it began, how it works, and where it might lead.
November 29, 2024
Tags: archive.org, enshittification, podcast, TikTok
November 2024 has 5 Fridays, so we listen to episode 438 of Cory Doctorow’s podcast where he first lays out his theory of enshittification.
Hannah Kemp-Welch & Sophie Hope talk with Kim Wide & Anurupa Roy about jugaad, and the role of frugal innovation in cultural practice.
Arlene Goldbard talks with Libby Lenkinski, founder and president of albi.org about culture, Palestine and Israel.
Hannah Kemp-Welch talks to Nisha Duggal about Held, a multi-platform project in which she guided people to make simple, clay sculptures while sharing conversations.
November 1, 2024
Tags: FTA, henotheism, IEA, manifesto, Museum of Unrest, Swamp Dogg
Owen Kelly looks at three recent events and suggests we work out how to play the long game if we ever want things to go our way.
October 25, 2024
Tags: Bristol, symposium, Take A Part, vocabulary, workshops
Hannah Kemp-Welch and Sophie Hope talk to 5 participants on the first day at Social Making 5 about what they liked and what they learned.
October 18, 2024
Tags: communication, community, differences, intention
Arlene Goldbard & François Matarasso talk about words used in our fields of work. This time, they focus on community.
October 11, 2024
Tags: creative strategies, education, mapping, mind maps
Paul Crook talks to Hannah Kemp-Welch about his work with young people to facilitate listening.
Owen Kelly talks with Professor Sara Selwood about the nature of nature writing, its effects on nature and its effects on culture.
September 27, 2024
Tags: conservatoire, education, London
Sophie Hope talks to Sean Gregory and Jo Gibson about the new Guildhall De-Centre.
September 20, 2024
Tags: Cork, ireland, parade, street theatre
Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with William Frode de la Foret, Art Director of Cork Community Art Link in Ireland.
September 13, 2024
Tags: drama, Essex, forum theatre, media awareness
Natalie Smith talks about her work with Arc Theatre and the role of listening in this work.
September 6, 2024
Tags: Bristol, symposium, Take A Part
Hannah Kemp-Welch and Sophie Hope talk to Kim Wide, CEO and artistic director of Take A Part, about the Social Making symposium that takes place in Bristol in October.
August 30, 2024
Tags: bees, citizen science, podcast, rewilding
This month we rebroadcast an episode of the Bees of Bensham podcast series in which Mattie interviews Barbara Keating, the lead artist on the project.
Sophie Hope talks to Barry Sykes about his current art project exploring permissable spaces for respite, refusal and reclining.
August 16, 2024
Tags: Canada, centre, indigenous, land
France Trépanier & Chris Creighton-Kelly talk about Primary Colours, an initiative to place Indigenous arts at the centre of Canadian arts.
August 9, 2024
Tags: expertise, permissions, practice, transcription, Zoom
Jorge Lucero discusses ‘Conceptual Art and Teaching’ and considers listening within critical pedagogy and as a daily practice.
August 2, 2024
Tags: cultural workers, election, government, labour
With a new UK Labour government, and the opportunities that may or may not bring, Owen Kelly talks to Susan Jones about possible futures.
July 26, 2024
Tags: lecture, Manchester, movement, performance lecture, Raymond Williams
Presenting a completely re-edited and remixed look at a session about cultural democracy held at the Raymond Williams Society in 2019.
July 19, 2024
Tags: art, authenticity, communication, differences, intention
Arlene Goldbard & François Matarasso turn their attention to some words used in discussions of cultural democracy and community-based arts.
July 12, 2024
Tags: collective organising, power dynamics, refusal, workshop practice
Alex Parry describes a collaborative project that intervenes in the structure of the seminar to disrupt the usual power dynamics.
July 5, 2024
Owen Kelly suggests that we should read A Guide for the Perplexed, the book that E. F. Schumaker wrote in 1977, but read it sceptically.
June 28, 2024
Tags: bees, biodiversity, Gateshead, rewilding
Sophie Hope talks to Ben Jones, founder of Dingy Butterflies about a recent citizen science and arts project called Bees of Bensham.
June 21, 2024
Tags: alternatives, collective ownership, inequality, new economy, solidarity
Arlene Goldbard & François Matarasso talk to Nati Linares, whose current focus lies in the solidarity economy for artists.
June 14, 2024
Tags: archeology, Brighton, Class Divide
Simon James reflects on the process of a recent project, and how listening played a central part throughout it.
Owen Kelly and Sophie Hope discuss Solidarity Not Charity, by Nati Linares and Caroline Woolard. As often, this leads to a wider discussion.
In 2024, when a month has 5 Fridays, we will find another podcast that excites us and spread the word. This month we look at an old episode of Free as in Freedom!
May 24, 2024
Tags: art, collaboration, economics, politics, reflection
Sophie Hope reports live from a meeting to acknowledge and celebrate the twelve years’ work of the Alternative School of Economics.
Arlene Goldbard & François Matarasso talk to James Thompson, founder In Place of War.
May 10, 2024
Tags: headphone verbatim, spoken word, theatre
Practitioner and researcher Sylvan Baker examines listening within applied theatre practices.
May 3, 2024
Tags: caldav, GTD, productivity, Todoist
Owen Kelly explains about Todoist, why you might host your own calendars, and how these relate to positive laziness and doing nothing.
April 26, 2024
Tags: community, disaster-proofing, Plymouth, transparent finance
Sophie Hope talks to Karen Pilkington about the origins of the Village Hub project in Plymouth, and what it has gone on to achieve.
April 19, 2024
Tags: austerity, authoritarianism, community
Arlene Goldbard & François Matarasso discuss the difficult conditions community-based artists & groups must work under as austerity bites.
April 12, 2024
Tags: photography, social work, spaces, under-resourcing
Marley Starskey Butler, a multidisciplinary artist and social worker, talks about workshops as spaces for listening.
April 5, 2024
Tags: ActivityPub, indieweb, web
Owen Kelly looks at some practical examples of changes we can make and tools we can use.
March 29, 2024
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.
March 22, 2024
Tags: islands, online learning, research, Scotland, social practice
Sophie Hope brings together 4 people connected to the MA Art and Social Practice run by the University of Highlands and Islands in Scotland.
March 15, 2024
Tags: community, music, Rhode Island
Arlene Goldbard talks with Sebastian Ruth about how classical music can connect with community arts and cultural democracy.
March 8, 2024
Tags: attunement, expectations, opt-in, process
Jody Wood talks about listening as a practice of care – where to care is not to cure.
March 1, 2024
Tags: AI, cultural democracy, email, Illich, web
Owen Kelly looks at the evidence for considering three different dimensions of the digital tools we use.
February 23, 2024
Tags: barriers, conference, MACRO, rage, Rome
Sophie Hope and Fabiola Fiocco discuss a workshop they led in Rome in February.
February 16, 2024
Tags: cultural policy, education, preservation, reinvention, Scotland
Arlene Goldbard talks with David Francis about the Traditional Music Forum in Scotland, and much more.
February 9, 2024
Tags: Gateshead, knowing, listening, participatory
Disabled artist and drag king Lady Kitt talks to host Hannah Kemp-Welch about their practice of ‘mess making as social glue’.
February 2, 2024
Tags: blogrolls, blogs, social media, web, webrings
Owen Kelly suggests that we update our ideas about the web to reclaim its radical, collaborative nature.
January 26, 2024
Tags: archiving, documentation, generations, history, Jubilee Arts, Laundry, learning packs, local
Brendan Jackson talks about the finale of the Jubilee Archives programme and the structure of Laundry.
January 19, 2024
Tags: atheism, materialism, mystery, overconfidence, radical amazement, spirituality
Arlene Goldbard and Owen Kelly discuss the secret (and not so secret) spirituality that fuels their work.
January 12, 2024
Tags: comfort levels, listening, micro-cues, neurodivergent, touch
Sam Metz talks about listening beyond the aural, sharing examples from their work with non-verbal participants.
January 5, 2024
Tags: action, inclusive, optimism, resolution, small
Owen Kelly suggests three approaches that we might usefully develop in the coming year.
December 29, 2023
Tags: Marxism & Literature, process, Raymond Williams
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.
December 15, 2023
Tags: advocacy, Canada, dance, festivals, social change
Arlene Goldbard talks with Judith Marcuse about the growth & hibernation of Canadian community engaged art.
December 8, 2023
Tags: film, listening, moving image, Stoke, young people
Edwin Mingard explores social change through moving image. Here he talks about the need to turn off ‘broadcast mode’.
December 1, 2023
Tags: capitalism, infrastructure, payment, UBI, unions
Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk with Susan Jones about visual arts, arts policy, structural flaws, and and artists’ livelihoods.
November 24, 2023
Tags: general semantics, systems thinking, transition design
This month Owen Kelly talks with Zeynep Falay von Flittner about transitions design and systems thinking.
November 17, 2023
Tags: early childhood, Ed Berman, europe, Inner City Theatre, networking, rural
François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard talk with Ralph Lister from Take Art, in rural Somerset, England.
November 10, 2023
Tags: Gateshead, knowing, listening, participatory
Albert Potrony introduces his participatory arts practice, describing a recent project with young fathers in Gateshead.
November 3, 2023
Tags: copyright, corporations, easyGroup, intellectual property, public domain, trademarks
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?
October 13, 2023
Tags: ABCD, asset based, community, conviviality, Illich, review
Owen Kelly reads extracts from The Careless Society to contextualise the arguments that John McKnight proposes.
October 6, 2023
Tags: co-creation, comic books, copyright, history
Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly discuss whether Bill Willingham can put Fables into the public domain, and what it might mean for co-creation.
September 29, 2023
Tags: cultural democracy, Cultural Policy Collective, Kings College, Malcolm Dickson, Sally Morgan
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.
September 22, 2023
Tags: climate change, distribution, lottery, optimism
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.
September 15, 2023
Tags: arts, democracy, New York, participatory budgeting, trust-based funding
Caron Atlas discusses her work with Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts New York (NOCD-NY) and Arts & Democracy, and much, much more.
September 8, 2023
Tags: convention, Council of Europe, FCN, network
Ed Carroll discusses the Faro Convention, the role of a “framework convention”, and the work of the Faro Convention Network.
September 1, 2023
Tags: enshittification, feudalism, platform capitalism, Tesla, Uber
Owen Kelly looks at some of the implications of Cory Doctorow’s neologism “enshittification” and the discussions around it.
August 25, 2023
Tags: atmosphere, documentation, family, storytelling
Will Weigler, community-engaged theatre maker, writer and storyteller, discusses his role as official rapporteur for the ICAF Festival.
August 18, 2023
Tags: artist-teachers, PETA, Philippines, resilience
Maribel Legarda & Beng Cabangon of the Philippines Educational Theater Association, founded in 1967, talk about PETA’s creative strategies.
August 11, 2023
Tags: conviviality, Illich, review
Owen Kelly reads excerpts from Tools for Conviviality to make sense of the arguments that Illich proposes.
August 4, 2023
Tags: energy, Myvillages, Scotland, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, social change, summer camp
Sophie Hope recorded this live report on the final day of the Rural School of Economics summer camp in July 2023 in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire.
July 28, 2023
Tags: archeology, co-creation, ICAF, India
Owen Kelly talks with Kim Wide, the founder of Take A Part, based in Plymouth in the UK.
July 21, 2023
Tags: bravery, learning, reflection
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…
July 14, 2023
Tags: feminism, listening, radio, transmission, VLF
Owen Kelly talks to Hannah Kemp-Welch about interfaces between feminism & ham radio, and the mysteries of ‘natural radio’.
July 7, 2023
Tags: Liverpool, participatory theatre, social change, The World Tomorrow
Collective Encounters discuss their work and the provocations they created for The World Transformed in Liverpool in September 2022.
June 30, 2023
Tags: ACGB, Arts Council, community art, history, manifesto, Sheffield
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.
June 23, 2023
Sophie Hope talks to Koh Hui Ling and Han Xuemei.
June 16, 2023
Tags: participation, research, theatre, Wales
Arlene Goldbard & François Mattarasso talk with TEAM about A Proper Ordinary Miracle, and other recent projects from National Theatre Wales.