Somerset House Podcast

The Process: Archive invites artists from our cultural programme and artist community to reflect on different works from the sonic archives and podcasts of Somerset House – from talks to soundscapes, performance to composition. In this episode, we deep dive into the transformative power of cute, exploring what happens when shrines and pop devotion intersect with the irresistible force of cuteness....

From alternative modes of listening to live performance as a form of time travel, the Black political economy of music and the platform conditions of distribution, musician, curator and theorist, DeForrest Brown Jr. wants to discover new ways of relating to audio. In a world of noise and an oversaturated music industry, what new worlds might we discover if we reimagine how we make and listen to mu...

Artist Dana-Fiona Armour reveals what the sea snake knows about our changing oceans – and what it’s telling us about the climate emergency.  It’s animals like the sea snake – a vital but often neglected bioindicator of marine health – that can be a crucial lens to environmental change. With fragile eco systems, rising sea temperatures and decreasing salinity, what would it take to retune our ears...

For the first in The Process Archive sub-series we revisit three works from Assembly, Somerset House Studios experimental sound and music series, with artists Elaine Mitchener, Beatrice Dillon, Jennifer Walshe and Memo Akten. Originating in 2018, Assembly emerged from the roots of sonic art and sound-based practice within the Studios resident artist community. To mark its fifth edition, we look ba...

Somerset House Studios artist Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom reimagines the drums as a time-travelling device across continent, history, and bodies. A visual artist who has been learning the drums as part of an art project since 2020, Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom has long been interested in how we might reframe our perception of the drums. Its primal release of sound and movement. An ability to shape an...

Artist duo Cooking Sections blur the lines between art and activism with their installation, The Ministry of Sewers.  The Ministry of Sewers is an exhibit by artist duo Cooking Sections for the Folkestone Triennial. Inspired by the 1976 appointment of Dennis Howell as Minister for Drought  – then Minister for Floods and Snows – it invites audiences to reimagine an alternative public service, using...

DJ and producer, Tayo Papoola, explores how the ground-breaking photography of Jennie Baptiste documented a generation of Black British creatives.  Rhythm and Roots – Jennie Baptiste ’s first major solo exhibition – opened at Somerset House in Autumn 2025, celebrating a three-decade career across music, fashion and youth identity. From the vibrating energy of London’s dancehall scene to the rise o...

In this special interview edition of the Process, artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen unpacks the background to her digital commission Grumpy .   Sidsel Meineche Hansen is a Danish artist who is interested in how things are made, both through the lens of the industrial complex and material forms of craft. Her work looks at the ways gender is produced and mutated through the production of female gendered...

And how did it manage to disappear with barely a trace?  Artists Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser (Hylozoic/Desires) go on a journey through the archives to unearth the story of the Great Hedge of India, a 4,000km long hedge grown by the British East India Company in the 1840s, to control the flow of salt across the continent. But despite being one of the longest of its kind in history, n...

Our Future is tied to the future of our soil. Our decisions as to how we care for and use it matter. Soil teaches us that cycles are ongoing, and even in decline every day offers us opportunities for new beginnings. In this final episode Shenece Oretha explores the regenerative qualities of soil and composting as a model for personal redemption.   We hear from Palestinian grower Mohammed Saleh who...

Much of the history of human making springs from the soil. Cuneiform, the earliest form of writing, was engraved into clay; paint pigments come from minerals in the soil; and much of our material history is held in ceramics. But soil is not neutral; it is deeply entangled with politics of ownership embedded in the land. In this episode Shenece Oretha probes the ways the soil and clay are inspiring...

Our entire existence is dependent on our relationship with soil. As awareness builds of the enormity of the ecological crisis that we are facing, a growing number of artists are engaging with soil as a material in their work.  This three part series responds to the Somerset House exhibition ‘Soil: The World at Our Feet’, unearthing soil's role in our future through the work of artists and thinkers...

Soil is unsung, and largely hidden from view. What if we were to put it in the foreground? To think of it as a collaborator?   Across three episodes, presenter and Somerset House Studios artist Shenece Oretha traces the life cycle of soil, from it’s foundational role at the beginning of life with artist Asad Raza, through to its manifestation as one of the earliest creative materials, with ceramis...

Why has the club been so pivotal to the history of black queer placemaking?   For artist and filmmaker Topher Campbell, growing up as a Black queer man in 1980s and 90s Britain, the club provided a sanctuary from the judgement and hostility of mainstream society. It became a space for community, self-discovery, and, as a care leaver, a sense of home. As co-founder of the rukus! archive and curator...

What one site in Croydon can tell us about the biggest moment of civil unrest in Britain in a generation. Listen to the full episode: Apple | Spotify   Artist Imran Perretta was in his early 20s when the riots began in 2011. What started in London quickly spread across England, but it was the footage of a furniture shop set on fire in Croydon which stayed with Imran. Now, 13 years later, Imran rev...

What one site in Croydon can tell us about the biggest moment of civil unrest in Britain in a generation. Artist Imran Perretta was in his early 20s when the riots began in 2011. What started in London quickly spread across England, but it was the footage of a furniture shop set on fire in Croydon which stayed with Imran. Now, 13 years later, Imran revisits that moment in a new commission for Some...

How can cuteness be used to sugar coat difficult messages?  In this episode we join another artist commissioned for the Somerset House exhibition CUTE, Brooklyn based Sean-Kierre Lyons , to explore how cute characters have been used to tackle sensitive ideas from the middle ages on.  In her practice, Sean-Kierre brings the grotesque and the cute together to approach challenging themes. Much of her...

Hannah Diamond reflects on the transformative powers of cute Cute aesthetics have exploded into pop culture. We use filters to make ourselves look like cute cats, dot our texts with hearts and smiley faces and our phones ping with alerts from cartoon animals reminding us to study French or change energy suppliers. Brands have been using cute images to sell us things since the dawn of advertising b...

What does it mean to use the voice of others within a performance, text or recording? In this episode of Not Strictly Speaking, we look at the ways in which the voice is used both in service of power, and as a way of reclaiming agency. Prem Sahib ’s new sound performance for Assembly, Alleus , takes a speech by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and renders it into a new form through layers of...

The communal voice has a long history within the resistance movement, from African American spirituals, to the protest songs of the civil rights movement and the current pro-Palestine marches. In this episode we explore the enduring power of group singing and how it can embody resistance and resilience with Turner prize winning artist Helen Cammock and artist and Somerset House Studios resident, V...

The voice is something we all share and yet rarely do we explore the full range of our instrument. Ahead of Assembly at Somerset House we talk to two vocal artists who stretch the capacities of the voice as a sound producing instrument to look at the ways the voice can channel meaning beyond words; voice artist and composer Elaine Mitchener , who is resident at Somerset House Studios; and the pion...

A three-part podcast series, released 20-22 March 2024, exploring different manifestations of the voice, produced in conjunction with Somerset House Studios' Assembly. Each episode follows artists featured in the 2024 programme, as they unpack the power of the voice beyond speech; examining it as a form of possession and how we might give voice to the inanimate.   Vocal artist and composer Elaine...

Artists Revival Cohen & Tuur Van Balen explore how humans have transformed the animals that we live with. The way in which we think about animals is riven with contradictions. We dote on our pets yet consume vast amounts of animals as meat. The UK consistently donates more money to animal welfare charities than any other cause and yet have created pet breeds with horrifying health defects. Rev...

The road to success is paved with inspirational quotes about failure.  But could failure be more productive than success? In this episode of The Process we step inside the community of designers on site at Makerversity in Somerset House to explore the role of mistakes in the design process.  Founding member Tom Stables talks to biomaterial designer Cassie Quinn, who makes sustainable sequins out o...

Tracing the legacy of Black British fashion with Andrew Ibi, Jazzie B & Martine Rose. The late 80s to the early 90s saw a Black cultural renaissance in Britain. Artists and designers like Sonia Boyce, Joe Casely-Hayford and Soul II Soul were breaking new ground across the arts and changing the landscape for Black creatives. While putting together The Missing Thread exhibition, co-curator Andre...