TM Live

The second episode of Staging Cities looks at retail palaces and cultural icons over a conversation with writer Alia Trabucco Zerán, shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize for her novel The Remainder (La Resta), and artist Bedwyr Williams, whose work was exhibited at Barbican Art Gallery, London, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, and Tramway, Glasgow, among many other institutions. Hosted by Marta Michalowska, Theatrum Mundi Sound design and editing by Philippe Frau-Nadal

This episode focuses on the key residential structure in the city – the concrete icon, the promise of high-rise living, the ghetto – through a discussion with writer Alison Irvine, author of novels This Road is Red (2011) and Cat Step (2020), and cartoonist Matthew Dooley, author of graphic novel Flake (2020), who both set their contributions to Concrete and Ink in tower blocks. Staging Cities is a new podcast from Theatrum Mundi, looking at ideas on the intersection of stagecraft, architecture and urban planning. We are borrowing from the toolkit of theatre-making to think about city-making. These new podcasts accompany a series of books we are working on with nai010 publishers from Rotterdam. Hosted by Marta Michalowska, Theatrum Mundi Sound design and editing by Philippe Frau-Nadal

The final episode in the first series of Staging Cities looks at improvised structures, radical ideas, nature and science in cities over a conversation with writer Sophie Mackintosh, whose debut novel The Water Cure was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, and artist and writer Crystal Bennes, whose writing on architecture and design has appeared in international publications including Icon, Frieze, Disegno and Metropolis. Staging Cities is a new podcast from Theatrum Mundi, looking at ideas on the intersection of stagecraft, architecture and urban planning. We are borrowing from the toolkit of theatre-making to think about city-making. These new podcasts accompany a series of books we are working on with nai010 publishers from Rotterdam. Hosted by Marta Michalowska, Theatrum Mundi Sound design and editing by Philippe Frau-Nadal

TM research fellow, Susannah Haslam, and TM studio manager, Lou-Atessa Marcellin join programme curator Andrea Cetrulo in a conversation around cultural infrastructure. Susannah and Lou have cultivated a friendship as they cultivated a garden together in south London. During these outdoor encounters, they've mused on ecosophy, how we can learn from non human organizations and what a return to modular principles of education, and lifelong learning could mean for our societies. Susannah talks about her fellowship with Theatrum Mundi, which draws on her doctoral studies and interest in alternative educational curricula. What does it actually mean to build a cultural institution? We also discuss the tension between innovation and stability, learning and unlearning, and the benefits and risks of becoming institutionalised. Lou is the founder of DIASPORE, a multidisciplinary research platform, as well as the School of Ronces (formerly NEWS seasonal school), which explore the making of landscapes in rural and urban environments. Image from: Eva Rowson's workshop at Tate Modern for Talking with Neighbours: reimagining the institution. Curated and produced by Andrea Cetrulo

Architect Fani Kostourou, associate at Theatrum Mundi, is joined by architect Blanca Pujals and engineer and dancer Ellie Cosgrave to discuss bodies and voices at the centre of city making. Who is visible or audible in public space, and how can interdisciplinary be incorporated into what are fundamentally data driven disciplines like engineering, and an architecture based on standardised measures of the body? Blanca is an architect, spatial researcher and critical writer. Her cross-disciplinary practice engages with questions of geographies of power, the philosophy of science and transnational politics. Ellie Cosgrave is a civil engineer, lecturer at UCL, as well as a trained dancer who has contributed in the development of Theatrum Mundi's ongoing project Choreographing the City. Curated and produced by Andrea Cetrulo

On this episode of our In Conversation Series we have invited two formidable friends to share their thoughts on a theme they have been exploring together: Silence and Stillness. Theatrum Mundi founder, sociologist and musician Richard Sennett, and choreographer, lecturer and Theatrum Mundi Fellow, Adesola Akinleye, exchange their impressions on the role of silence and stillness in their own practice, and the ways in which they influence our being in cities. What do the acts of improvisation, scoring, and designing a city tell us about intentionality, nowness and presence? And how can silence and stillness disrupt, emphasize, or resist a linear narrative in music, dance and architecture?

On this first podcast of TM Live, Andrea Cetrulo, Programme Curator at TM, is joined by Brazilian performance artist Paul Setúbal, and architect and TM Associate Elahe Karimnia. Touching on themes of the body, choreography, and violence, this conversation informs TM's ongoing research project Choreographing the City, which questions the ways we move in cities and how choreography can challenge or reveal our understanding of urban design. Curated and produced by Andrea Cetrulo

How can architecture defy stark materialism and open up to porousness and the unexpected? What does the resurgence in the interest in magic and ritual tell us about the future? Therapeutical Infrastructures is the second part of a conversation between philosopher and writer Federico Campagna, and filmmaker and visual artist Chiara Ambrosio. As a continuation of the first episode Reality as Magic, Chiara tells us more about the intriguing Neapolitan cult of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio, Federico talks hospitality and finding therapeutical effects in non-human entities such as books, and reflects on where to find the ineffable in our contemporary cities. Curated and hosted by Andrea Cetrulo Intro music by William Messenger and Sophrosyne Illustration by Sophie Rogers Design by Marcos Villalba

We are delighted to share the first episode of the TM Live podcast series Incantations, Reality as Magic: Federico Campagna in Conversation with Chiara Ambrosio. What are the different meanings of magic? How can imagination empower us? Does solidarity require an identity, a social or political filiation? This is part one of a conversation with Federico Campagna and Chiara Ambrosio, where we discuss Federico's book Magic and Technic: the Reconstruction of Reality (Bloomsbury 2018), and Chiara Ambrosio's film La Frequenza Fantasma (The Phantom Frequency, 2014). Both authors posit magic as a frame of reality for understanding and experiencing the world, and its potential to subvert social hierarchies. Federico Campagna is a philosopher and writer based in London. His research combines metaphysics, theology and cultural studies, with the aim of exploring fundamental strategies for emancipation in the 21st century. Chiara Ambrosio is a filmmaker and visual artist based in London, working with animation, documentary, sound and the printed matter. Curated and hosted by Andrea Cetrulo Intro music by William Messenger and Sophrosyne Illustration by Sophie Rogers Design by Marcos Villalba

"In the city, are we offering possibilities for those bodies that are not visible? How are we giving them visibility? Are we ourselves possessed by the spirit of ‘the capital'?” Maria Sideri In the fourth and final episode of Theatrum Mundi's podcast series Incantations, artists Mercedes Azpilicueta, Maria Sideri and Angeliki Tzortzakaki discuss their project priestesses of disgrace: you bring joy into my life, which interrogates through sound the way female voices are perceived in public spaces in a syncretic city like Athens. We also discuss the perception of women's bodies as simultaneously sinful and healing across different cultural contexts, and how ritualistic possession can be used to resist oppressive hierarchical structures. Our guests also share their own personal rituals for creating moods and attune to the cities they live in. Curated and hosted by Andrea Cetrulo Intro music by William Messenger and Sophrosyne Illustration by Sophie Rogers Design by Marcos Villalba

Is it possible to create spaces for secrecy, alterity and non-conformity in our surveillance cities through dance and ritual? Can purposely disorienting oneself in familiar places open new doors of perception to reality? The Mystical Body: Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh in Conversation with Alkistis Dimech is the third episode of TM Live's Incantations podcast series. Founder of practitioner run press Scarlet Imprint and dancer of Japanese avant-garde form, Butoh, Alkistis Dimech, is in conversation with Iranian-American professor of philosophy and enchanting storyteller Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh. We discuss Butoh and mystical practices as ways of claiming spaces for spirituality that are being effaced from our cities of surveillance. We also talk about identity politics, the meaning of “living space” and the separation of mind and body. Curated and hosted by Andrea Cetrulo Intro music by William Messenger and Sophrosyne Illustration by Sophie Rogers Design by Marcos Villalba