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.
BOOKSHELF
Owen Kelly and Sophie Hope discuss Solidarity Not Charity, by Nati Linares and Caroline Woolard. As often, this leads to a wider discussion.
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.
August 11, 2023
Tags: conviviality, Illich, review
Owen Kelly reads excerpts from Tools for Conviviality to make sense of the arguments that Illich proposes.
May 12, 2023
Tags: Africa, corruption, internet, politics, telecoms
Owen Kelly talks to Russell Southwood about his recent book Africa 2.0.
March 3, 2023
Tags: activism, Black Panthers, history, rap, story
Owen Kelly looks at the web of arguments put forward by Jason “Propaganda” Petty in his book Terraform: Building a Better World.
David Moscow talks to Owen Kelly about how he moved from Bernie Sanders’ 2016 media campaign to the television series & book From Scratch.
January 6, 2023
Tags: culture, industrialisation, Old Words, policy
François Matarasso presents an audio essay examining the depoliticisation of community art in Britain between 1970 and 2011.
December 2, 2022
Tags: culture, industrialisation, Old Words, policy
François Matarasso explains why, as an area of conscious policy, culture has never been more important to democratic states than it is today.
November 4, 2022
Tags: culture, Old Words, place, poetry, Robert Rendall
François Matarasso on Orcadian culture: “the unique creation of interaction between people and place, coming and going, over centuries”.
October 7, 2022
Tags: music, Old Words, power, social change
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.”
September 2, 2022
Tags: folk culture, heritage, Old Words, tradition
François Matarasso discusses the differences between folk culture and heritage and how we might safeguard our intangible heritage.
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.”
July 1, 2022
Tags: change, children, engagement, Old Words
François Matarasso contrasts the childhoods of today’s children with his own. He looks at what children gain from the arts and the ways in which politicians have contrived to limit this access and the amount of stimulation it can provide. He ends with a plea for increased involvement, but on children’s own terms.
June 3, 2022
Tags: Old Words, probability, rationalism, uncertainty
François Matarasso reads The Art of Uncertainty, an from 2010 that considers how the arts might respond to an era characterised by a sense of uncertainty.
Francois Matarasso reads Prisoners of Love, an extract from a book called Where We Dream, published in 2012 by Multistorey.
Francois Matarasso reads Making Nothing Happen, a talk he first gave in September 2016. He has revised it in the light of current events.
March 4, 2022
Tags: essay, music, Old Words, reflections
Francois Matarasso analyses his initial reactions to hearing Eric Burdon singing House of the Rising Sun with the Animals as a child.
February 4, 2022
Tags: artists, ethnography, social
Sophie Hope talks with Gretchen Coombs about her new book, The Lure of the Social.
January 7, 2022
Tags: action, cultural democracy, economy, funders, reading
Owen Kelly and Sophie Hope discuss Solidarity Not Charity, by Nati Linares and Caroline Woolard. As so often, this leads to a wider discussion.
December 3, 2021
Tags: community radio, cultural democracy, innovation, research
Jo Coleman talks with Sophie Hope about her new book “Digital Innovations and the Production of Local Content in Community Radio: Changing Practices in the UK”.
Owen Kelly and David Morley discuss Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century written by Christian Caryl and published in 2014.