Serpentine Podcast

Back to Earth presents a new mini-podcast series inspired by the publication of 140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth , a collaboration between Serpentine and Penguin. Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist & Kostas Stasinopoulos, this book is part of Back to Earth , Serpentine's long-term project dedicated to the environment and the climate emergency. For this podcast series we've invited five artists from t...

A new mini-podcast series inspired by the publication of 140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth , a collaboration between Serpentine and Penguin. Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist & Kostas Stasinopoulos, this book is part of Back to Earth , Serpentine's long-term project dedicated to the environment and the climate emergency. Back to Earth invites practitioners to respond to the environmental crisis and i...

On Practice: Walking asks how does walking shape our experience of the city? How can it be used as a tool for resistance and change? Featuring artist Sam Curtis's Changing Play project with children from the Portman Early Childhood centre, Which Way Now? alongside interviews with anthropologist Tim Ingold , campaign group Voice of Domestic Workers and writer Katouche Goll . In this episode of On P...

On Practice: Listening asks: How can listening form a space of political encounter? What is the difference between listening and hearing? How do other people hear?  This episode features artist Ain Bailey's collaboration with Micro Rainbow alongside recordings from Pauline Oliveros' tuning meditations, a sound piece from artist collective Ultra-red and a contribution from academic and sound practi...

On Practice: Cooking asks how cooking can bring people together and provide nourishment and care? What are the ways that cooking together can open up difficult conversations - about racism, colonialism and migration?  This episode highlights artist Jasleen Kaur's collaboration with women from the Portman Early Childhood Centre through the Changing Play project Everyday Resistance , and includes Yo...

What are earth, land, soil, ground and dirt? Join us in that place which is simultaneously ground, land, soil and Earth, that is to say, where diverse species come together, collaborate, communicate and constitute one another but also where complex systems of redistribution of toxicity, logics of extraction and geopolitics meet. This episode is a collaboration between Future Ecologies and Serpenti...

"Instead, let's consider the dandelion achene. The flower kingdom's lil grey-haired punk."  (Sophia Al-Maria) Released on the Winter Equinox, 21 December 2020, tarax'sup? is a short meditative exercise inspired by the common dandelion ( taraxacum officinale ) written and performed by Sophia Al-Maria , with a musical score by Kelsey Lu and cover artwork by Tosh Basco (boychild) . tarax'sup? is a gi...

"In the Wobble" On the occasion of the General Ecology festival, The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish: The Understory of the Understory , Serpentine Podcast hosts the three-part series, "On Fire" from Future Ecologies: a story of burning, first released in 2018. Sign up to The Understory of the Understory at https://bit.ly/FishyGround . Another year, another fire season. We've already had a...

"Combustible Communities" On the occasion of the General Ecology festival,  The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish: The Understory of the Understory , Serpentine Podcast hosts the three-part series, "On Fire" from Future Ecologies: A story of burning, first released in 2018. Sign up to The Understory of the Understory at https://bit.ly/FishyGround . In this second part of this multi-episode s...

"Camas, Cores, and Spores" On the occasion of the General Ecology festival,  The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish: The Understory of the Understory , Serpentine Podcast hosts the three-part series, "On Fire" from Future Ecologies: A story of burning, first released in 2018. Sign up to The Understory of the Understory at https://bit.ly/FishyGround . The past years have been the worst fire ye...

Back to Earth: Can I Get Back To You? The concluding episode of this podcast season examines the past, present and future of the Back to Earth project, which invites artists to respond to climate emergency. How do you see Back to Earth contributing to environmental work? Is Back to Earth trying to change minds or hearts? When you are lost, or need inspiration, who or what do you turn to? How does...

What is queer ecology? How do queer theory and artistic practice inform environmental activism and climate justice? How can we think decolonisation and queerness together? Victoria Sin welcomes guest host Serpentine Assistant Curator, Kostas Stasinopoulos to dive into transformation, queerness, the natural and unnatural, wild, decolonial and submerged perspectives. Together with guests Ama Josephi...

Indigenous rights, care of biodiversity, and ecological, multispecies worldviews are inextricably connected. Today's episode features perspectives from self-organised Indigenous organisations at the front line of extraction and climate change, as well as artists researching our more-than-human entanglements. Released on the occasion of the International Day of the World's Indigenous People, Standi...

How are artists using technologies to imagine alternate realities, new alien languages and manipulate time? How can artists make the invisible visible? Systems and Sprouts is a new episode with host Victoria Sin and guest host Victoria Ivanova, who works with the Arts Technologies team at the Serpentine on creative research and development. Together they explore the ways technology is being used a...

What does design look like when it begins from a position of ecological responsibility? What does designing with and for the non-human mean? Host Victoria Sin is joined by Rebecca Lewin, Curator of Exhibitions and Design, together they dive into everything from eco-design led exhibition making, to asking questions about the future of design education and ecological practices. Lewin is joined by Fo...

How can botanical knowledge support practices of ecological and personal healing? In episode 4: By Leaves We Listen , hosts Victoria Sin and Lucia Pietroiusti are joined by Emma Nicolson, Head of Creative Programmes at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. Emma moderates a roundtable with artists Keg de Souza, Nabihah Iqbal and botanist Greg Kenicer. Featuring sound works by Rachel Pimm and Keg de...

What are artists' roles in knowing or making tomorrow? What are alternative ways of knowing our planet? Victoria Sin and Lucia Pietroiusti return to their roots of General Ecology, with conversations recorded at a summit organised by creative sustainability charity Julie's Bicycle. Featuring Alison Tickell, Zadie Xa, Climate Symphony and Cosmo Sheldrake, with new sound pieces from Zadie Xa and Cos...

In Episode 3, hosts Victoria Sin & Lucia Pietroiusti dive into one of the core ecological principles of Back to Earth: we are all interconnected, smaller pieces of a larger whole. Featuring conversations with Brian Eno and Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Elizabeth Povinelli of Karrabing Film Collective, as well as sound works by Tabita Rezaire and clips from Karrabing's 2018 film, The Mermaids, or Aiden i...

How are artists developing campaigns for the Earth? How can an artwork reconnect us with the environment? Can we "feel" the speed of climate change, or hear the sounds of a seed? Episode 2, hosts Victoria Sin & Lucia Pietroiusti welcome Ayesha Tan Jones, James Bridle & Cecilia Vicuña, three artists participating in Back to Earth, to begin to sow the seeds of their multifaceted campaigns. Image: Se...

How can art respond to the climate emergency? How can society collectively self-transform? How can an arts institution contribute to discourse around the climate crisis in a meaningful way? Hosts Victoria Sin and Lucia Pietroiusti welcome the new series with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Suzanne Dhaliwal, Cooking Sections, students from the RCA and sound works by Brian Eno, to take things Back to Earth. Ima...

Roots move towards water. Leaves grow towards the sun. Plants don't have neurons… Does it matter? How else can they remember, and learn from their experiences? We consider plant intelligence, and what we mean when we talk about intelligence in the first place. Join us in thinking with plants.

Ancient Greeks used orchids and lettuce to enhance and suppress sexual appetite. Thinking beyond plants as a backdrop or decoration, what do they teach us about sex and desire? Reflecting on the long and deep relationship between botany, eroticism, agriculture and myth, this episode will make you see, hear and feel plants like never before.

Curators for Serpentine Projects and Serpentine Education - Amal Khalaf and Alex Thorp bring us sounds from their one-day forum at Conway Hall in London, Rights to the City?. We hear artists, activists and educators from across the world considering how artists, institutions and people can transform society. Hosts: Amal Khalaf & Alex Thorp Production: Paul Smith for Reduced Listening Mixing: Steve...

What new ecological insights can be gained from thinking of the planet as an organism in itself? As humans, we have a need to simplify our surroundings to understand them. How can we communicate the complexity of the world in a way we understand, without losing its meaning?

In our own bodies, we are outnumbered 9-to-1 by non-human cells. If we as humans need these organisms to function, what exactly do we mean when we think of ourselves as 'an individual'? What new ecological insights can be gained from thinking of the planet as an organism in itself? Tune in, and get in and out of your body.