Talking Culture

The Synthetic Sacred  is a new action-research initiative curated by Lucy Rose Sollitt that explores pathways for ecological restoration amidst hybridity. For this episode, we consider biotechnologies within the context of indigineous cosmologies. Might reframing biotechnologies in the context of the sacred web of life be useful in guiding innovation towards the creation and restoration of flouris...

Episodes 19 and 20 of Talking Culture are dedicated to the new action-research initiative 'The Synthetic Sacred', which explores pathways for ecological restoration amidst hybridity. The initiative has been curated by Lucy Rose Sollitt and supported by the Goethe-Institut London.  The notion of 'The Synthetic Sacred' is both a provocation and an attempt to forge sustainable narratives and practice...

Gugulethu Duma aka Dumama is a musician, composer, sonic poet and creative producer from the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Her practice plays with the deconstruction and critique of archaic modes of representation in Southern African/African sonic and performance culture, while also composing music for herself and others. For this episode, she will discuss her journey with the Goethe-Inst...

(Re-)Collecting Europe is a residency programme devised by the Goethe-Institut London, which gave two journalists the opportunity to travel through the UK for four weeks. It aimed to reach emerging journalistic voices, encouraging critical thinking and creative debate. Against the backdrop of the UK’s departure from the EU the journalists-in-residence examined the social and cultural impact Brexit...

For this episode, Esther Leslie and Louis Porter join us to unpick the mind of one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers Walter Benjamin. In 1935, he wrote an essay called 'The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproduction'. During the episode, we reflect on some of the core ideas from the text and apply them to modern-day cultural phenomenons, from machine translation to grand-scale dig...

This podcast episode is the first podcast episode of the Lives of Objects series. We invited multidisciplinary artists Gala Porras-Kim and James Webb to discuss the ways in which we think about the lives of objects through an artistic lens. The two focus on objects and artefacts with historical, socio-political, and spiritual importance. 

Through a series of extraordinary sound recordings, Dr. Matthew Herbert pushed us to hear further than we might have thought possible, asking the question: “How can systemic listening lead to meaningful action?” To celebrate 60 years of the Goethe-Institut London, we held three Goethe Annual Lectures in 2022. For our third, we invited Dr. Matthew Herbert for his talk “Beyond Hearing”. The talk was...

In her talk, “The Culture of Artificial Intelligence”, Mercedes Bunz explores the particular power of AI systems using work from contemporary artists to reveal the human misunderstanding regarding AI. To celebrate 60 years of the Goethe-Institut London, we held three Goethe Annual Lectures in 2022. For our second GAL, we invited Professor Mercedes Bunz to discuss “The Culture of Artificial Intelli...

As German writer Mithu Sanyal confirms, it's a preconceived idea that love and politics don't go together. They are in fact polar opposites. Moreover, love has become a dirty word in politics. We can talk on social media about sex till the cows come home, but love, it's too cute, too lovey-dovey, and too unpolitical. In light of recent events, a discussion about the role of love in our world seems...

What exactly is a quantum computer? Have you ever wondered what all the media hype is about or how quantum computing may impact our everyday lives? In this episode, we talk to quantum expert Emily Haworth, curator Lucy Rose Sollitt and Professor Eduardo Miranda to learn about quantum technologies and the arts. Over the coming weeks, the Goethe-Institut will explore these questions and more under t...

Imagine life beyond crises. A world beyond catastrophe, wars and climate crisis. How would you like to live? And now think ahead to 2050. Looking back on your present self, how would you have wanted to have lived? In this episode we talk to curator and project developer Isabel Raabe of Talking Objects Lab and curator and dance dramaturg Thomas Schaupp, one half of the curatorial team behind Goethe...

Author and curator Dan Hicks, best known for his book The Brutish Museums (2020), takes stock of the debate around the enduring legacies of empire in our museums, universities and society at large. In this episode, he talks about recent events in Europe and North America, from removing statues and un-naming buildings to returning artefacts from colonial museums. As a society how can we make amends...

The Goethe-Institut London and the Somerset House Studios are collaborating to establish a new international artist residency programme to support a Germany-based artist working at the intersection of music, art and technology. For the inaugural edition from October 2021 we invited Berlin-based and Texas-born DJane, writer and performer Juliana Huxtable for the residency. Time to discuss her influ...

“Going Green and the SouthKenGreenTrail - a greener infrastructure for a sustainable metropolis”. A podcast with artist Natalie Taylor, the architecture and design collective Urban Radicals and landscape architect Adam Harris.

In the summer of 2020, British author and broadcaster John Kampfner released a new book with a provocative title... . In this episode, we share his 2019 Brady Lecture with the same title: . And yes, the title made us a bit uncomfortable too. But don’t worry; this isn’t an episode about one nation being superior to any others; it’s about what democratic countries in the West can learn from a unifie...

With Brexit in the rear view, the decades-long discussion and debate about the role and purpose of the European Union has taken on a new urgency. In this episode, we ask two young intellectuals–one from the UK and one from Germany–to reflect on what Europe means to them. Alice Boyd is a composer, theater maker and environmental campaigner from the UK. Simon Strauß is a German historian, writer and...

Art has the power to change the world by highlighting critical issues, but what responsibility does the art world have to make their own changes and take inventory of internal practices that are unsustainable or inequitable, to address the environmental cost of putting on exhibitions? In this episode, Iwona Blazwick, Director of the renowned Whitechapel Gallery in East London, grapples with these...

The creative writing of Black feminist authors has revolutionary potential. It challenges dominant assumptions and expands the horizons of the current literary audience. In this episode, activist and author Sharon Dodua Otoo honours her literary ancestors and mentors, condemns the racist structures that deprived them of deserved praise during their lifetimes, and explores how Black feminist creati...

Now, as the world is facing a new economic crisis, how could the arts and civil society benefit from blockchain technologies? Hear from artists, curators, technologists and researchers who are using blockchain to revolutionise their way of working. This episode features Ruth Catlow, artistic director of Furtherfield, Ben Vickers, CTO at the Serpentine Galleries, and artist collectives from Berlin...

One month into the first lockdown of 2020, we called Kris Nelson, Artistic Director and CEO at LIFT:the London International Festival of Theatre, to find out how theatres and their people were surviving. In this episode, we’re returning to that conversation because it captures a unique moment in the pandemic upheaval, and we’re calling Kris once again–a year later–to find out what has changed and...

A special preview of the new and improved Talking Culture. Episode 1 will be available on 28 April. Talking Culture is a platform for thought-provoking discussions about the future of Europe, the UK, and the world. Through fascinating interviews with thinkers and doers in the arts and culture sector, this show investigates how creative fields are emerging from the tumultuous present into the futur...