The Mater Podcast

APPLY to Joya AiR + Mater residency (plus info and terms & conditions): https://joya-air.org/joya-mater-apply Joya: AiR is a landmark international, interdisciplinary arts residency grounded in the intersection of creative practice, ecological inquiry, and sustainable cultural engagement. Situated within an off‑grid, climate‑positive environment in rural Andalucía, the residency fosters an int...

My two guests are completely passionate about the subject of Minerals... artist Mále Uribe and writer/geoloist Marcia Bjornerud Mále Uribe is a Chilean architect and artist whose work explores material culture, the value of natural resources, myths, chemical properties, industrial processes and microworlds. As designer in residence at London’s Design Museum in 2019, her installation Salt Imaginari...

This fascinating conversation was recorded at the Rembrandthuis museum in Amsterdam, where I had the pleasure of speaking with The Rembrandt House curator, and the former head of paintings conservation at the Rijksmuseum. We were discussing the paintings of the 17th century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn: about Rembrandt’s pigments, the evolution of his painting process, and the art of painting c...

BCB: https://www.britishceramicsbiennial.com/  This year’s programme: https://www.britishceramicsbiennial.com/news/full-programme-announced-for-british-ceramics-biennial-2025/ Clare Wood: https://www.britishceramicsbiennial.com/person/clare-wood/ Burleigh Pottery: https://www.burleigh.co.uk/pages/about-us ReForm Herritage: https://re-form.org/ Recast programme BCB: https://www.britishceramics...

Welcome back!! Today I'm speaking with Tessa Silva about MILK. Tessa is a British-Brazilian artist whose work considers our collective use of materials from ancient history to the present day. Using craft as a tool to investigate the relationship between culture and nature, Tessa unravels the storied histories of the materials she works with in the knowledge that every material has its own biograp...

This week on The Mater Podcast, Evie Hatch, studio and materials specialist and host of Jackson's Pigment Stories, is joined by artist Ginny Elston to discuss The Personalities of Pigments.  Ginny, winner of the Student Award in Jackson’s Art Prize 2023, shares her insights on her collaboration with Unison Colour to curate a series of soft pastels (pictured here). Evie and Ginny also dive int...

A conversation between artist Claye Bowler and art historian Andrew Cummings about the exhibition Dig Me A Grave, burials, connection to the land , latex, soil, death & more. Links Dig Me A Grave dates & venues: Steam Works Gallery, WIP Studios, Wandsworth, London https://www.wipspace.co.uk/dig-me-a-grave 21.03.25 - 11.05.25 PV 20.03.25 Auction House, Redruth, Cornwall 21.06.25 - 19.07.25...

Hello! This is Maddie Rose Hills, host of The Mater Podcast. This week's episode is a little different, and a lot shorter! I have just got back from a week-long Research Residency at West Dean School of Arts, Craft, Design and Conservation. What is a research residency? Well it can really be anything - but for me it meant wandering around the school, meeting people from lots of different departmen...

Today I am chatting with Lucila Kenny and Barbara Collé about COLOUR Lucila Kenny is an Argentinean textile designer as well as a researcher focused on Natural Dyeing and the colourants produced by a range of plant species. As a natural dyer and educator she has worked with universities, art academies, fashion designers, biologists and artists exploring, preparing and producing plant colorants for...

This week I’m joined by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Formafantasma. Formafantasma are a design studio who investigate the ecological, historical, political and social forces shaping the discipline of design today. Their extensive client list includes Prada, Hermes, Vitra Design Museum, Fendi, The Venice Bienale, Rijksmuseum, and the National Museum of Norway. This conversation was recor...

A conversation about Plastic with designer Shahar Livne and environmental humanities scholar Heather Davis. Shahar Livne is an award winning conceptual material designer. Livne's lifelong fascinations in nature, biology, science, and philosophy developed into an intuitive material experimentation way of work during her degree studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Shahar brings life to unique st...

Claire Baily is a London-based artist, researcher, and educator whose work navigates the intersections of art, sustainability, and material innovation. I had been following Claire’s research on Instagram, after knowing her as an artist working with an array of materials, with amazing technical casting ability.. And then seeing her document a shift away from Petrochemicals, resins etc, looking at w...

Emii Alrai & Amanda Pinatih discuss material artefacts, memory, belonging and museum practice. Emii Alrai: https://www.instagram.com/emiialrai/?hl=en-gb https://emiialrai.com/ Amanda Pinatih: https://www.instagram.com/amandapinatih/?hl=en-gb https://madepinatih.com/ Design Museum Dharavi: http://designmuseumdharavi.org/Design_Museum_Dharavi/Dharavi.html Guna Guna, When things are beings exhibi...

Bosco Sodi: https://www.instagram.com/studioboscosodi/?hl=en https://www.boscosodi.com/ Alberto Rios de la Rosa: https://www.instagram.com/ariosdel/?hl=en Casa Wabi: https://casawabi.org/en/ Mater Website: https://mater.digital/ Mater Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mater________/?hl=en Bosco Sodi is an artist known for his richly textured, vividly coloured large-scale paintings. Born in Mexi...

Hannah Pezzack is a writer, editor, and curator. Drawing on sonic knowledge, ecology, and the politics of intimacy, she regards language and sound as deeply intertwined sensory and embodied mediums. She is currently a junior curator at Sonic Acts – an art, theory, and technology biennial – and is the assistant editor of Ecoes, a bi-annual magazine about ‘art in the age of pollution’, published by...

An EPIC conversation with Ellie Barrett. We delve into the philosophical and artistic histories of materials. We talk about Ellie’s art practice working with various materials and in collaboration with both her mum and daughter.. Ellie is a sculptor, practice-based researcher, writer, academic and artist-mother, who is invested in exploring sculpture as a collaborative discipline. Using material e...

An amazing conversation with Bisila Noha & Simone Brewster  Bisila is an artist working predominantly with clay, with a background in Translation and International Relations. She writes about ceramics, crafts, identity and design, and has a particular interest in the contributions of women of colour to the history of art and craft. Her words are a bridge bringing the past - the forgotten,...

I am joined by two UK-based artists Hannah Lees and May Hands. The two have recently undertaken their second collaborative project together, titled ‘Self can shade off into otherness gradually’. The project was held at VOLT gallery, run by Devonshire Collective in Eastbourne. Hannah Lees investigates ideas of cycles, constancy and mortality; the sense that things come to an end and the potential f...

This week I discuss oil paint, car wraps, spray paint, light, and painting tools with Harriet Gillett and Kate Dunn.   This conversation contains references to sexual assault. Harriet is an artist living and working in London, who works from sketches made in the moment, usually in pubs at live gigs.. Working predominantly with oil and spray paint, she layers thin veils of colour over a w...

I am joined by the artist duo Matterlurgy to talk about Water! Matterlurgy are a research-based artist duo composed of Helena Hunter and Mark Peter Wright. Some of their projects have responded to sites such as a hydropower station, disused steelworks, a laboratory for ice simulation, an abandoned copper mine, as well as galleries and museum collections. Examining ways of sensing, translating and...

A magical conversation with Emma Witter and Krista Mileva-Frank about Shells and Grottos.. I first came across Emma’s work a couple of years ago.. Emma is an artist who makes work from found and waste ephemera. Looking back at heritage craft, she combines ancient materials with relatively recent scientific processes such as electroforming and kiln forming. When I asked Emma a few months ago t...

This week I am in conversation with Hannah Fletcher and Steffie de Gaetano about sustainable photographic processes, soil chromatography, and waste Hannah Fletcher is an artist based in London, working with photographic processes, incorporating organic matter such as soils, algae, mushrooms and plants into photographic mediums and surfaces. I first heard of Hannah through her work as the founder o...

The fabulous Rebecca Coleman & Nicole Seymour join me to chat about the sparkly, clingy, joyful, irritating, enchanting paradox that is glitter! A few years ago I attended a zoom lecture by Dr Rebecca Coleman about her long-term research project into glitter. A project which was initiated following a collaging workshop with young girls, organised by Coleman.. It was witnessing the allure of gl...

On ochre, wild clay and foraging! This week I am joined by the magnetic pairing that is Heidi Gustafson and Belinda Blignaut. When I first came across the sculptures of the artist Belinda Blignaut I was blown away by them. Made from unprocessed clay and other found materials from her immediate surroundings, tapping into ideas around transformation. Though it took me a long time to actually reach o...

I am joined by the wonderful Nicola Turner & Mick Sheridan, speaking about sculptures, upholstery, waste, horsehair and wool.. Nicola Turner: https://www.instagram.com/nicolaturner.art/?hl=en Mick Sheridan: https://www.instagram.com/m.s.upholstery/?hl=en Nicola is an artist with a background in set and costume design. She has designed for The Royal Opera House, National Theatre and Sydney Oper...