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Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview Betsy Damon whose work with water has had a healing impact across the globe. She talks about her work from early projects in China to her current undertakings.   OCTOBER 17 | SERIES 2025 STREAM A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY | EPISODE 57 PARTICIPANTS   Betsy Damon | Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso COMMENTARY Betsy Damon is an internationally-recogniz...

Susan Jones works as an independent arts researcher and writer who holds specialist knowledge and insight about the social and political environment for artists and contemporary visual arts. She has just completed her independent qualitative and longitudinal study Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience, formed around case studies of 14 visual artists from three English regions. She has been work...

On episode 56 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso offer their third podcast in a series about censorship and related issues, following on episode 54 with writer Jeff Chang and episode 55 with muralists Amber Hansen and Reyna Hernandez. Arlene and François talk about their own direct experiences with these issues, including times community artists had to chose which...

According to Wikipedia, Jon Savage “is an English writer, broadcaster and music journalist, best known for his book about the Sex Pistols and punk music, England's Dreaming”. He has also written a lengthy and very detailed book called Teenage: the creation of youth 1875 - 1945, and in this episode Owen Kelly looks at that, and points to some of the many interesting and useful connections and examp...

Oh look its the fifth Friday of August. That must mean its time for another episode of Friday Number 5! At the end of January we started another irregular series of Radio Miaaw: podcasts of music issued under Creative Commons licences; a theme we last explored four years ago. This month we have another unexpected surprise. We have found Faircamp, which aims to achieve something similar to Bandcamp...

On episode 55 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso host muralists Amber Hansen and Reyna Hernandez, who were the first interviewees on the podcast! Following on Episode 54, in which Jeff Chang detailed the censorship of his book by the US Department of Defense, Amber and Reyna talked about the more local or subtle forms of pressure to censor or self-censor, such as a...

Miriam Toews is a Canadian author, and Fight Night is her seventh novel. It tells the story of a grandmother, a pregnant mother, and her young daughter who find themselves living together as an intergenerational family while having to cope with life-changing situations. It reads as a comedy and a commentary. It feels hilarious and deeply moving. Owen Kelly suggests reasons why you should find a co...

On episode 54 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview author Jeff Chang, known for his books on cultural subjects including hip-hop, race and racism, and Asian Americans. In May, Jeff posted to his Substack an account of how the Defense Department had removed his book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A Hip Hop History, written for young adults, from schools on US milit...

In this episode Sophie Hope talks to artist, researcher and teacher Anthony Schrag about a symposium he organised on 9 May 2025 at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. The symposium, entitled Getting it right/Getting it wrong: Socially Engaged Art and Ethics was supported by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Sophie attended the symposium and in this discussion she and Anthony refle...

On Episode 53 of A Culture of Possibility, “Money Changes Everything,” Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about funding for community-based art and cultural democracy in light of the two previous episodes featuring funders from the UK and US. What’s happening? What does it all mean? Where can we go from here?

According to Wikipedia “Iain McGilchrist's 2009 work, The Master and His Emissary has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide. It sought to consolidate research in brain lateralisation and to insist on the individual and cultural importance of the bi-hemisphere structure of the brain”. McGilchrist suggests that “we have become entranced by the version of the world brought into being by the left hemisph...

This month we have the second Friday Number Five of 2025. At the end of January we started another irregular series of Radio Miaaw: podcasts of music issued under Creative Commons licences; a theme we last explored four years ago. This month we have a special and unexpected surprise. Moby and Little Walnut Productions have re-launched mobygratis with, their words “phenomenally expanded functionali...

We interviewed John Phillips about The Museum of Unrest on December 6, 2024, at the time it launched its second collection, Good Design. You can listen to that discussion again if you click here . Next month, in the middle of June 2025, the Museum of Unrest will launch its third collection, called Community Arts. This collection has been co-curated by John and Belinda Kidd, who has had a long and...

In Episode 52, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview Lori Pourier, a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who served as the President of the First Peoples Fund (FPF) between 1993-2024. Currently, Lori acts as the Founder and Senior Fellow of First Peoples Fund, which “supports the cultural, artistic and ancestral practices of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian artists, fam...

This, the final episode of Ways of Listening, was recorded live by Hannah Kemp-Welch at the symposium ‘Listening Together: Practices for Community-Centred Listening’ at London College of Communication in February 2025. Drawing on their experiences and emerging practices, electroacoustic composer Julia Schauerman, queer artist and educator Samantha Dick, and Senior Lecturer at University of Arts Lo...

With this podcast we begin a new set of summer reading suggestions for 2025. In the first episode of the summer (if indeed it is summer where you are) Owen Kelly and David Morley discuss Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century written by Christian Caryl and published in 2014. Neither of them agree with Caryl’s political position but instead argue about the usefulness of the approach...

Sovay Berriman describes her work as “rooted in their experience of being Cornish, their culture’s shifting identity, and the mutability yet power of a sense of place”. She “uses her practice as a structure and prompt for action and discussion, and is committed to questioning balances of power”. In 2015 Sovay trained as a plumbing and heating engineer and works in the construction industry alongsi...

On episode 51 of “A Culture of Possibility,” Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with David Cutler, Director of The Baring Foundation, based in London. One of Baring’s strategic grant areas is Arts & Mental Health, granting about £1 million per year over at least five years to organizations specializing in arts and creativity with people with mental health problems; supporting particip...

This episode was recorded live at a symposium titled ‘Listening Together: Practices for Community-Centred Listening’. The symposium was hosted by the research centre Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice at London College of Communication in February 2025. Our regular host Hannah Kemp-Welch chaired a panel with two artists: Beverley Bennett, who organises ‘gatherings’ to challenge the hierarchi...

Youth Landscapers Collective (YLC) operate as a youth arts organisation based in the National Forest area of England. They describe themselves as “a collective of young people, artists and technicians who collaborate with our local community to explore this landscape’s industrial past and forest future.” In the final episode of the current series of YLC Special Editions, Sophie Hope interviews You...

Owen Griffiths describes himself as “an artist, workshop leader and facilitator. Using participatory and collaborative processes, his socially engaged practice explores the possibilities of art to create new frameworks, resources and systems.” From 2017-2019 he acted as co-director of Gentle/Radical, a community arts and social justice project based in Cardiff. He also leads several long-term proj...

In episode 50 of “A Culture of Possibility,” Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about a remarkable book, Engineers of the Imagination: The Welfare State Handbook. First published in 1983, it’s both an account of a novel and exciting approach to community performance and a how-to manual for anyone who wants to use or adapt its tools and methods. The book conveys the spirit and generosity o...

Hector MacInnes works in socially engaged art, sound and research. His practice includes spoken word, sonic fiction, installation, text, tech, music, radio, speculative design and organising things, often in collaboration with other artists and a diverse range of communities. Hector was born and grew up on the Isle of Skye, and his projects are deeply rooted in an ongoing interrogation of belongin...

Youth Landscapers Collective is a youth arts organisation based in the National Forest area of England. We’re a collective of young people, artists and technicians who collaborate with our local community to explore this landscape’s industrial past and forest future. In this episode we want to give you a sense of how we work together. YLC member Kris Kirkwood has built a sound narrative of our 202...

This episode addresses two questions. 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? Sophie Hope and Hannah Kemp-Welch discuss with Ben Bordwick and Leo Valls who both made presentations at Social Making in October 2024. Note: Social Making iteration 5 took place on Octob...