The Radical Design Podcast

Earthship Futures: Radical Design for Community and Life  is a live conversation between Daryl Taylor and Oliver Vodeb, at 2026 Melbourne Design Week, recorded as part of the Radical Design Podcast. The discussion focuses on Taylor’s Earthship project in Kinglake, Victoria – an experimental natural building initiative developed through international participatory workshops following the Black...

The amazing Jane Naylor speaks with Oliver Vodeb about how to go on an Artstrike. Jane reassessed her art practice, went on an Artstrike and developed the concept of *Rt. Find out what this means, and how could you do it yourself. Besides this, we talk about deeper and more nuanced ways on how to distinguish Art from Art in ways that help us see through the BullS*** Art World and what it calls Art...

Oliver Vodeb talks to George Petelin, author of the chapter on Dialogue in Memfest’s book on Radical Intimacy. They discuss the importance of intimacy for true dialogue to take place and how conditions in contemporary society erode that intimacy or substitute it with forms of pseudo-intimacy. Radical Art and Design face the difficult task of restoring intimate dialogue mediated through technology...

What carries more wisdom than the seed? Rachel Bordeleau, Jeanette Hart-Mann and Chrissie Orr collaborate on SeedBroadcast, a transdisciplinary art project, raising the culture of agri-culture and putting the seed in the centre of our relations with the world. In this podcast episode they speak with Oliver Vodeb about the different and intimate dimensions of their work learning from the seed and u...

In this conversation, artist and activist Kyle Magee joins Oliver Vodeb to explore what it means to act publicly—through subvertising, image intervention, and sustained political engagement within a media landscape dominated by corporate power. Together, they ask: what does genuine participation in the public sphere look like today? Noone does anti- advertising activism like Kyle Magee. And we at...

American scholar Daniel Marcus and Memefest curator Oliver Vodeb explore the deep ties between capitalism and addiction from the early 20th century to today. They show how capitalism has not only shaped addiction but has actively relied on it as a strategy for growth. Drawing on their chapter “Capitalism’s Addictions” in the book Radical Intimacies , they explain how addiction became capitalism’s...

Why is design not enough? Berlin based designer extra-ordinaire Sandy Kaltenborn and Oliver Vodeb discuss design practices which seeks social and political impact and transformation, in relation to the to the constrictions of professional frameworks. The pressing social and political challenges we face these days cannot be understood—let alone addressed—from within the closed logic of traditional...

Aboriginal artist and activist Kristy-Lee Horswood and writer, teacher, and activist Sam Burch join Oliver Vodeb to discuss Aboriginal practices of “Seeing Country” and Radical Design. “Country” for Aboriginal people is a deep spiritual and cultural relationship with the land, waters, skies, and all living things—a source of identity, belonging, law, and responsibility. The conversation centres ar...

In this conversation Keely Macarow and Oliver Vodeb touch on intimacy during time of the pandemic. The exceptional events of global pandemics teach us a lot about the limits and the potentials of Intimacy. How can we think about intimacy and even radical intimacy through the lessons learned during Covid lock downs or through looking at the HIV pandemic? Visit our website: https://memefest.org/know...

Black community leader from Baltimore Eric Jackson and Oliver Vodeb speak about radical intimacies and Food Apartheid. The racial structuring of food production, distribution, consumption and promotion of food is deeply rooted in capitalist domination and extraction. The conversation gives deep context on Food Apartheid , explains the situation in Baltimore and the work of Black Yield Institute a...

Australian scholars Alexandra Crosby and Ilaria Vanni are in conversation with Oliver Vodeb about their ideas on Seed Balls as a relational design method. As designers who apply permaculture principles to broader social and cultural issues they have explored and developed potentials of a DIY method to relate with the planty world and with each other in radical ways. Check the Radical Intimacies, D...

In this episode Chilean and Canadian designer and academic Patricio Dávila and Oliver Vodeb discuss what is "critical visualisation" its potentials and also a special project looking at NATO accountability in the death of refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. Check the Radical Intimacies, Designing Non- Extractive Relationalities book and read the complete chapter "Designing Facts: Assembling Survivo...

Argentinian medical epidemiologist, family physician, and Memefest collaborator Mariano Mussi puts forward the idea of the emancipatory potentials of suffering. In this episode Marianno Mussi and Oliver Vodeb explore how radical intimacy is the answer to impossibilities, which cause suffering. In a capitalist society the aim is not to cure suffering but to create value. Radical Intimacy manifests...

Slovenian/Australian sociologist and extradisciplinary designer Oliver Vodeb and Colombian maverick anthropologist Arturo Escobar discuss the onto-epistemic politics of participatory design. They discuss the roots of participatory design and show urgent and hopeful frameworks for true participation based on radical interdependence. How can we reclaim participation again? Check the Radical Intimaci...