Absolute Units

Send us Fan Mail How does humanity fit into nature? How long have we viewed ourselves as being apart from it? And what are the problems that creates? This time, we chat with Tom Oliver and Marzia Briel from the University of Reading to learn about their Nature-centric Catalyst project. We discuss the rights of nature, the advocacy landscape today, and how we can better centre the natural world in...

Send us Fan Mail Okay. Take 2. Last month we drew to a close two major installations at The MERL: our gallery trail Radical Rural , and our exhibition Voices of the Countryside. In this episode, Joe and Ollie reflect on these two projects. We explore what we learned from them, what they meant to us, and how we want to build on this work for the future. We also talk about the World Cup, explain wha...

Send us Fan Mail How do museums engage with accessibility, both as spaces that welcome visitors and as collections of human stories? On this episode, we're joined by the brilliant disability activist and performance artist Anahita Harding.  We discuss Anahita's work in agricultural museums (both the Food Museum and The MERL), the histories of disability in our collection, and how we can...

Send us Fan Mail Turns out delays come like London buses. First Joe got the flu. Then we accidentally re-shared the first episode with Guy rather than the new one. If you listened before we caught it, we hope you enjoyed that episode even more the second time. Anyways, we're back! We return in full strength, with the right episode to boot, to pick up once more with the brilliant environmental...

Send us Fan Mail It's a simple three-word question. Yet the answer is extremely complicated, expensive, and concealed behind paywalls that run into hundreds of millions of pounds. How did we get here? And how do we get out of it? In this episode, Joe and Ollie are joined by the remarkable author and campaigner Guy Shrubsole (co-founder of Right to Roam) to explore the question of who really o...

Send us Fan Mail Hi folks! We're closed tomorrow for Easter (which is when we'd usually release our next episode). Ollie and Joe are also in and out of the office at the moment, so we're going to use this as a chance for a brief hiatus and we'll then be back to regular programming in 2 weeks' time. See you very soon! --- Absolute Units is the official podcast of The Museum...

Send us Fan Mail Content warnings: infant mortality (indicated in the chapter list!) - skip from 14:38 to 19:33 Today we turn 1 years old! A fine age for a growing podcast. Thanks to everyone who has tuned in, joined us in the booth, and supported us in these last 12 months. To celebrate, we decided yesterday afternoon to record an impromptu anniversary episode, taking listener questions via Blues...

Send us Fan Mail In 2022, a report by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences analysed 14 European countries and ranked them for nature connectedness, bio diversity, and wellbeing. Britain ranked last in all three. So how do we better protect nature, care for wildlife, and look after each other?  Adrian Lawson is an environmentalist, author and activist whose career and campaigns have been defined b...

Send us Fan Mail Old Crockern returns! We're back for a second episode with the legendary giant of Dartmoor, plus giant maker and dancer Ruth Webb (of The Lost Giants) and storyteller and environmentalist Lisa Schneidau. Last time, we set the scene of Crockern's story and introduced a repetition of history, as Alexander Darwall sought to restrict wild camping on Dartmoor. This time we de...

Send us Fan Mail There's an ancient spirit who rules over Dartmoor, an uplands region in South West England. His face is granite grey. His eyes are dark as peat pools. His name is Old Crockern. And right now, he's at The Museum of English Rural Life. In the first of two episodes, we're joined by environmentalists and activists Ruth Webb (of The Lost Giants) and Lisa Schneidau (story...

Send us Fan Mail Content warning : This episode contains references to antisemitism and prejudice. Listener discretion is advised. --- Last episode we talked about the founding year of The Museum of English Rural Life. But what was our significance within wider museum practice? How did our founding relate to Britain's waning empire? And what does the future hold for The MERL? In this second e...

Send us Fan Mail On 1 January 1951, on the same day that the first episode of iconic radio drama The Archers aired on the radio, academics at the University of Reading officially founded The Museum of English Rural Life. What inspired these storied scholars to make a museum? What did establishing a museum involve? And why aren’t all our team dressed up in smocks? On this episode, Joe and Ollie cha...

Send us Fan Mail Jane Austen’s novels are classic books of the English countryside. Yet they reveal so much more about English culture, industry and society than simply presenting prettified scenes of village life. In this episode, we're back with Professor Paddy Bullard (University of Reading) and Isabel Hughes (The MERL) to talk about how Jane Austen’s novels explore space in rural and urba...

Send us Fan Mail It is a truth universally acknowledged that every podcast about the history of the English countryside must do an episode on Jane Austen. In the first of two conversations, Joe and Ollie are joined by Professor Paddy Bullard (University of Reading) and Isabel Hughes (MERL Associate Director) to explore Jane Austen's links to farming, as found in her personal biography and her...

Send us Fan Mail How does the history of enclosure surface in England today and in Britain's former colonies? How can we de-enclose to create access for all? In this episode, Joe and Ollie continue last time's conversation with the legendary author and activist George Monbiot, about how does the history of capitalism and colonialism interlink to England's urban and rural spaces. Lea...

Send us Fan Mail Throughout history people have pitted life in the city against the countryside, comparing urban corruption with an innocent rural idyll. Where does this comparison come from? What is its relevance today? And how do we resist these ideas to imagine a more equitable and sustainable future for town and country alike? Joining Joe and Ollie today is the best-selling author, activist an...

Send us Fan Mail Pumpkins, carved. Candles, lit. Units, absolute. Welcome to a special Halloween bonus podcast by The Museum of English Rural Afterlife. This time, ghosts Ollie and Joe welcome fiend-of-the-show Mark Norman (author, host of the Folklore Podcast, and founding curator of the Folklore Library and Archive) for a candle-lit walk through the history of Halloween.  Join us as we cycle thr...

Send us Fan Mail In our last episode, Tim Jerrome (now, University of Brighton; previously, The MERL) shared with Joe and Ollie how he's using The MERL archives to research queer lives and same-sex relationships in England's rural past. Today, Tim shares examples of the stories and relationships that he's been able to trace so far. We talk about the challenges of piecing together pe...

Send us Fan Mail Queer histories of England have predominantly focused on the country's urban centres and cities - especially London. Yet queer and same-sex relationships have always existed throughout English life. Rural England is no exception. In the first of two podcasts, Joe and Ollie welcome onto Absolute Units former MERL colleague Tim Jerrome (University of Brighton), whose PhD explor...

Send us Fan Mail Throughout modern English history, people have protested against the movements to enclose and limit access to green spaces. Their reasons have varied dramatically – from deadly agricultural protests like the Swing Riots, to 90s raves, and druids campaigning for access to Stonehenge. Yet each moment of resistance gives us new insight into the complex and contested relationships we...

Send us Fan Mail "The law locks up the man or woman who steals the goose from off the common / But leaves the greater villain loose: who steals the common from the goose." In this episode, Joe and Ollie speak with Professor Katrina Navickas (University of Hertfordshire) about the history of the commons: the shared resources that communities depended upon for their livelihoods. Learn abou...

Send us Fan Mail Modern farming is full of digital technology. Nobody knows this better than Amy Bateman, a prize-winning photographer and sheep farmer who uses digital tech in both lines of work (even using the same kit to take photos and to run the farm). In this episode, Joe and Ollie continue chatting with Amy about technology and diversification on modern farms: from tech's opportunities...

Send us Fan Mail In 2020, award-winning photographer and sheep farmer Amy Bateman set out to document the stories of forty farms in Cumbria. From Lake District hill farms, to the Solway marshes.  Amy's photographs present a captivating picture (literally!) of Cumbrian farming in a period of profound societal and technological change. We've been fortunate enough to display them in our 202...

Send us Fan Mail Man in the Woods makes art about parts of rural England that you wouldn’t normally think about – and definitely wouldn’t find in Wordsworth. From hastily-printed dog poo posters, to portraits of massive cows framed in pubs. In this episode, Joe and Ollie continue last week’s conversation with Man in the Woods. We discuss his artistic career, his interests, and the modern history o...

Send us Fan Mail Seven years ago on a Friday, artist Scott (best-known on social media as Man in the Woods) set off for a walk to no particular destination. The next Friday, he started a new walk where the previous week's ended. He's been doing that every Friday ever since, documenting his travels on social media while producing beautiful artworks that reflect his finds and the connectio...