Podcasts about artes mundi

Contemporary and performance artist Paul Maheke moves between France, Congo, and Canada, exploring the ‘archive of their body' through drawing and dance, via Taboo Durag (2021). To Be Blindly Hopeful emerged from the very last sentence of a journal that Paul Maheke kept between August 2020 and June 2021, capturing the turbulence of the COVID pandemic. Central to Maheke's practice is a delicate dance between the individual and the collective, personal and broader sociopolitical contexts, echoing the sentiment expressed by bell hooks, who reminds us that ‘the space of our lack is also the space of possibility.' Currently based in France, Paul shares works 'staged' in previous exhibitions at South London Gallery, Chisenhale Gallery, and Tate Modern, highlighting how the ‘new' drawings, prints, book illustrations, and paintings on display here have long formed part of his practice. He explains how performance and dance can be both emancipatory and trapping, with respect to queerness, masculinity and gender, and the reality of being ‘brown body looked at my white audience' - drawing on his lifelong admiration for the French-born ice skater, Surya Bonaly. We discuss Paul's popular culture and academic Influences like Grace Jones and Félix González-Torres, Audre Lorde and Édouard Glissant, and Bruce Nauman to Paul B. Preciado - not as icons but real, complex people. Finally, Paul highlights how his work changes in its global travels, from the Baltic Triennale in Estonia, to Johanneburg, South Africa - and, drawing on collaborations with family members and fellow artist Melika Ngombe Kolongo (Nkisi) for the Congo Biennale in 2021, his personal relationship with arts institutions on the continent, as a diasporic artist. ⁠Paul Maheke: To Be Blindly Hopeful⁠ runs at MOSTYN, Wales until 29 June 2024. It includes Taboo Durag (2021), produced as a performance to camera for ⁠Glasgow International⁠ 2021. This episode marks this iteration of Scotland's biennale festival of contemporary art, which continues until 23 June 2024.** Paul has also shown work as part of the ⁠Diaspora Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019⁠, the first to feature an official performance programme co-produced with the Delfina Foundation, and has work in the ⁠Drawing Biennal 2024⁠, which runs at the Drawing Room in London until 3 July 2024. For another of Paul's collaborators, listen to Barby Asante's Declaration of Independence (2023), performed as part of Art on the Underground in London: pod.link/1533637675/episode/aa2803b68933ab974ca584cf6a18479c For another exhibition from MOSTYN, hear artist and curator Taloi Havini on Habitat (2017) and Artes Mundi 10: pod.link/1533637675/episode/e30bd079e3b389a1d7e68f5e2937a797 For more about bell hooks, listen to Professor Paul Gilroy, on The Black Atlantic (1993-Now): pod.link/1533637675/episode/90a9fc4efeef69e879b7b77e79659f3f And for more about Édouard Glissant, listen to Manthia Diawara, co-curator of The Trembling Museum at the Hunterian in Glasgow, and artist Billy Gerard Frank on Palimpsest: Tales Spun From Sea And Memories (2019), part of PEACE FREQUENCIES 2023.: instagram.com/p/C0mAnSuodAZ/?img_index=1 PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast And Twitter: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

Welcome to the first of our episodes from the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.Today, I am delighted to hand the mic to my dear friend the arts writer Dale Berning Sawa, who met with John Akomfrah at the preview of The British Council commission Listening All Night To The Rain. You'll also hear from me in this episode and Dale shares a reflection on her first Venice experience and conversation with the artist on this special occasion. You can also enjoy Dale's review of Listening All Night To The Rain and images from the exhibition, in Shade Art Review. today.Listening All Night To The Rain continues artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah's investigation into themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change with a renewed focus on the act of listening and the sonic. The exhibition, conceived as a single installation with eight interlocking and overlapping multi-screen sound and time-based works, is seen as a manifesto that encourages the idea of listening as activism and positions various progressive theories of acoustemology: how new ways of becoming are rooted in different forms of listening. Encouraging visitors to experience the British Pavilion's 19th century neoclassical building in a different way, Akomfrah's commission interprets and transforms the fabric of the space in order to interrogate relics and monuments of colonial histories.John Akomfrah initially came to prominence in the early 1980s as part of the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC), a collective founded in 1982. An early film by BAFC, titled Handsworth Songs (1986), explored the events around the 1985 riots in Birmingham and London. In recent years, Akomfrah's work has evolved into ambitious, multi-channel installations presented in galleries and museums worldwide. In 2017, he won the Artes Mundi prize, the UK's biggest award for international art. He has previously participated in the 58th Venice Viennale with Four Nocturnes, commissioned for the inaugural Ghana Pavilion in 2019, and Vertigo Sea (2015) as part of the 56th International Art Exhibition. The British Council commission Listening All Night To The Rain at the Venice Biennale 2024 runs from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November 2024. Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEditing and mixing by Tess DavidsonDale Berning SawaBritish PavilionVenice Biennale Help support the work that goes into creating Shade Podcast. https://plus.acast.com/s/shadepodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Artist and archivist Pio Abad draws out lines between Oxford, the Americas, and the Philippines, making personal connections with historic collections, and reconstructing networks of trafficking, tattooing, and 20th century dictatorships. Pio Abad's practice is deeply informed by world histories, with a particular focus on the Philippines. Here, he was born and raised in a family of activists, at a time of conflict and corruption under the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos (1965-1986). His detailed reconstructions of their collection - acquired under the pseudonyms of Jane Ryan and William Saunders - expose Western/Europe complicities in Asian colonial histories, from Credit Suisse to the American Republican Party, and critique how many museums collect, display, and interpret the objects they hold today. In his first UK exhibition in a decade, titled for Mark Twain's anti-imperial satire, ‘To the Person Sitting in Darkness' (1901), Pio connects both local and global histories. With works across drawing, text, and sculpture, produced in collaboration with his partner, Frances Wadworth Jones, he reengages objects found at the University of Oxford, the Pitt Rivers Museum, St John's College, and Blenheim Palace - with histories often marginalised, ignored, or forgotten. He shares why his works often focus on the body, and how two tiaras, here reproduced in bronze, connect the Romanovs of the Russian Empire, to the Royal Family in the UK, all via Christie's auction house. Pio shares why he often shows alongside other artists, like Carlos Villa, and the political practice of Pacita Abad, a textile artist and his aunt. He talks about the ‘diasporic' objects in this display, his interest in jewellery, and use of media from bronze, to ‘monumental' marble. Finally, Pio suggests how objects are not things, but travelling ‘networks of relationships', challenging binaries of East and West, and historic and contemporary experiences, and locating himself within the archives. Ashmolean NOW: Pio Abad: To Those Sitting in Darkness runs at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford until 8 September 2024, accompanied by a full exhibition catalogue. Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, Pio's forthcoming exhibition book, is co-published by Ateneo Art Gallery and Hato Press, and available online from the end of May 2025. For other artists who've worked with objects in Oxford's museum collections, read about: - Ashmolean NOW: Flora Yukhnovich and Daniel Crews-Chubbs, at the Ashmolean Museum. - Marina Abramović: Gates and Portals, at Modern Art Oxford and the Pitt Rivers Museum. For more about the history of the Spanish Empire in the Philippines, listen to Dr. Stephanie Porras' EMPIRE LINES on an ⁠Ivory Statue of St. Michael the Archangel, Basilica of Guadalupe (17th Century)⁠. And hear Taloi Havini, another artist working with Silverlens Gallery in the Philippines, on Habitat (2017), at Mostyn Gallery for Artes Mundi 10. WITH: Pio Abad, London-based artist, concerned with the personal and political entanglements of objects. His wide-ranging body of work, encompassing drawing, painting, textiles, installation and text, mines alternative or repressed historical events and offers counternarratives that draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies and people. He is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: ⁠instagram.com/empirelinespodcast⁠ And Twitter: ⁠twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936⁠ Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/empirelines

Artist - and winner of Artes Mundi 10 - Taloi Havini mines connections between extractive industries in the Pacific Islands, and Wales. documenting the environmental damage caused by colonial, and patriarchal, relations with land, in Habitat (2017). Named for its town, the Panguna copper mine in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea was the largest in the world when it first opened in 1972. Run by the Australian mining company, Conzinc Riotinto, it symbolises how legacies of extraction - in colonialism, and contemporary capitalism - are often entangled. Born in Bougainville, and now based in Brisbane, Taloi Havini's own multidisciplinary artistic practice is informed by her matrilineal ties to her land and communities. In Habitat, a three-channel, immersive video installation, Taloi follows the journey of a woman called Agata, as she continues to investigate the legacies of resource extraction in Panguna and the Pacific region. Moving from lush greens to lurid blue waters - unnatural colours which Taloi hasn't tampered with in film - we trace the poisonous tailings, waste products of mining, that have destroyed the landscape. Taloi talks about how mining has ‘robbed' people of sustainable ways of living, and how communities have come together to resist the imposition of destructive, gendered relationships to land. She describes various women as leaders, and shares her research-based practice, based on the intergenerational transfer of Indigenous Knowledge Systems,. Taloi details her work in ‘countermapping', turning the same tools used by 19th century British settler-governments in Australia and New Zealand (Aoterea) for colonial discovery, plunder, and control, to showing evidence for those seeking environmental compensation. She also shares how her communities asked her to use drones, challenging the temporal othering of Indigenous identities. Acknowledging her particular identity from the Nakas Tribe of Hakö people, Taloi connects with the practices of other Pacific artists, and details her forthcoming curatorial project, Re-stor(y)ing Oceania at Ocean Space, part of the Venice Biennale. On her announcement as winner of Artes Mundi 10, the UK's largest contemporary art prize, she connects with her contemporaries - including John Akomfrah, Rushdi Anwar, Alia Farid, and Naomi Rincón Gallardo - and the solidarity shared by this year's participants, most of whom come from areas of conflict, in seeking peace with respect to the situation in Palestine. She also shares how the work translates as it travels, challenging stereotypes like the ‘tropicalisation' of Pacific identities, by platforming everyday Indigenous and Black experiences and identities. And at the Prize announcement in Cardiff, we discuss how Habitat resonates in local communities in Wales, a nation with its own particular relationship with oil, gas, and coal resource extraction. Artes Mundi 10 runs at venues across Wales until 25 February 2024. RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology ran at the Barbican in London until 14 January 2024, and travels to FOMU in Antwerp, Belgium until 14 August 2024. WITH: Taloi Havini, multidisciplinary artist based in Brisbane, Australia. She uses a range of media including photography, audio–video, sculpture, immersive installation and print, to probe intersections of history, identity, and nation-building within the matrilineal social structures of her birthplace, Panguna, in Arawa, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. This year, Taloi is the curator of Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania at Ocean Space, Venice, and the winner of Artes Mundi 10 (AM10), the UK's leading biennial exhibition and international contemporary art prize, presented with the Bagri Foundation. ART: ‘Habitat, Taloi Havini (2017)'. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast And Twitter: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

The Smile is a trio comprising Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner. That Yorke and Greenwood are members of Radiohead assures keen interest the band. Nick Ahad talks to Jonny Greenwood about Wall of Eyes, The Smile's second album. After many years Greenwood still enjoys making music with Yorke, and drummer Tom Skinner adds to the excitement. The winner of this year's Artes Mundi prize, the UK's leading international contemporary art prize is Taloi Havinian, an artist from the Autonomous Region of Bougainvillle – an island nation in the South West Pacific. Havinian joins Front Row to discuss her work which has been described as a “visual composition of the experiences of Bougainvilleans with colonialism, mining, resistance, and land and water protection, from the 1960s to the present day.” Sexism and misogyny are rife in the music industry, a boys club where sexual harassment and abuse are common, according to a Government report. The musician Self Esteem has her say.A report from the rugged, mythical coast just outside of Newcastle, the location which inspired David Almond's A Song For Ella Grey, an award-winning novel being adapted for stage by Zoe Cooper and directed by Pilot Theatre's Esther Richardson.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Lawrence's dad was a butty - a contractor who put together a team to mine coal for an agreed price. His 1913 novel Sons and Lovers drew on this heritage. Frances Wilson's new biography focuses on the decade following, when The Rainbow had been subject to an obscenity trial, he travelled to Cornwall and Mexico and then the discovery that he had tuberculosis. In a non-Covid year, this weekend would have seen the Durham Miners' Gala take place. Poet Jake Morris-Campbell writes a postcard about the traditions of this annual gathering of banners and brass bands. Prabhakar Pachpute's family worked in the coal mines of central India for three generations. For his contribution as one of the artists taking part in Artes Mundi 9, he's drawn on this shared cultural heritage with the Welsh mining community to create an installation of paintings, banners and objects that comment on protest and collective action. Matthew Sweet presents. Burning Man: The Ascent of DH Lawrence by Frances Wilson is out now. Artes Mundi is on show at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter and g39 Dr Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at the University of Newcastle and is a visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of programmes from the past ten years of the scheme on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35 Producer: Luke Mulhall

Lawrence's dad was a butty - a contractor who put together a team to mine coal for an agreed price. His 1913 novel Sons and Lovers drew on this heritage. Frances Wilson's new biography focuses on the decade following, when The Rainbow had been subject to an obscenity trial, he travelled to Cornwall and Mexico and then the discovery that he had tuberculosis. In a non-Covid year, this weekend would have seen the Durham Miners' Gala take place. Poet Jake Morris-Campbell writes a postcard about the traditions of this annual gathering of banners and brass bands. Prabhakar Pachpute's family worked in the coal mines of central India for three generations. For his contribution as one of the artists taking part in Artes Mundi 9, he's drawn on this shared cultural heritage with the Welsh mining community to create an installation of paintings, banners and objects that comment on protest and collective action. Matthew Sweet presents. Burning Man: The Ascent of DH Lawrence by Frances Wilson is out now. Artes Mundi is on show at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter and g39 Dr Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at the University of Newcastle and is a visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of programmes from the past ten years of the scheme on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35 Producer: Luke Mulhall

A Somali man arrested for murder in 1950s Cardiff inspired the latest novel from Nadifa Mohamed. She talks to Rana Mitter about uncovering this miscarriage of justice in a newspaper cutting with the headline, "Woman Weeps as Somali is Hanged". On stage at the National Theatre in London, Michael Sheen, Karl Johnson, and Siân Phillips lead the cast in a production of Under Milk Wood, so we look at the craft of Dylan Thomas's writing and talk to Siân Owen about her framing of the story for the National Theatre stage. And we hear about the links between art and community demonstrated by the Cardiff collective called Gentle/Radical who've been nominated for this year's Turner Prize, and look at the work on show in Artes Mundi 9 at the National Museum, Cardiff, Chapter Arts Centre, and g39. Nadifa Mohamed's novel, out now, is called The Fortune Men. You can find her discussing the writing life alongside Irenosen Okojie in the Free Thinking playlist called Prose and Poetry - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh Under Milk Wood runs at the National Theatre in London from 16 June–24 July 2021. An exhibition of work by Gentle/Radical will be held at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry from 29 September 2021 - 12 January 2022, as part of the UK City of Culture 2021 celebrations. The Turner Prize winners will be announced on 1 December 2021. The Artes Mundi 9 Prize exhibition is now open at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter Arts Centre, and g39 until 5 September. The prize winner is announced on 17 June 2021. BBC Cardiff Singer Of The World 2021 is taking place between 12 and 19 June in Cardiff, with broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. Producer: Emma Wallace

Firelei Báez ​(b. 1981, Dominican Republic) ​is a celebrated painter and sculptor who received a M.F.A. from Hunter College, a B.F.A. from the Cooper Union’s School of Art, and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In 2020, Báez was shortlisted for Artes Mundi 9, and will be the subject of a solo presentation at the ICA Watershed, Boston, MA this summer. Just this week, it was announced that she is the recipient of the 2021 Phillip Guston Rome Prize-- a highly competitive fellowship that supports advanced independent work and research in the arts and humanities. Baez has had solo exhibitions at the Mennello Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and the Modern Window at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Her major 2015 solo exhibition Bloodlines was organized by the Pérez Art Museum Miami and travelled to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

In this episode, I’m talking with Penny James, Cardiff-based freelance press and PR specialist who’s held PR Manager roles with organisations such as Welsh National Opera and St David’s Hall, and has gained national and in some cases international coverage for Wales Millennium Centre, Music Theatre Wales, Black Rat Productions, Artes Mundi and many others ||| We talk about * how to prepare for approaching journalists * why you need a content calendar and a media toolkit and what they contain * thinking creatively about where you place your stories * the importance of documenting your work * preparing a press release * what you can create or prepare for print, radio and TV journalists * nurturing relationships * whether exclusives are a good thing * how education/community departments can get gain support from their marketing departments * the importance of personal stories.

Clint Eastwood is the director and star of The Mule, about a cantankerous 90 year-old horticulturist who decides to become a drug mule. Mark Eccleston reviews. The UK's biggest contemporary art prize, the £40,000 Artes Mundi prize, was won last night in Cardiff by Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, known for his dream-like films such as Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. He talks to Front Row.In new novel When All is Said, 84 year-old Maurice Hannigan props up the hotel bar in a small town in Ireland and, by toasting the five people important in his life, he tells of his path from poverty to becoming a rich landowner. Debut novelist Anne Griffin explains her real-life inspiration and how she got into her narrator's head.There have been calls by Leave campaigners for London's Photographers' Gallery to be stripped of its funding in the wake of their exhibition of a fully functioning office tasked with reversing Brexit. In the continued uncertainty surrounding the future of arts funding post-Brexit, cultural historian Robert Hewison discusses what organisations such as Arts Council England may need to consider when funding projects in the future. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Timothy Prosser

Kate Maltby, Lucy Powell, Zoe Strimpel join Shahidha Bari. Virtue Rewarded is the subtitle of Samuel Richardson's 1740 novel Pamela, which began as a conduct book before he turned it into the new literary form of the novel. Playwright Martin Crimp has taken this book as the inspiration for his latest work When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other. Shahidha Bari & guests debate consent then and now + news of the £40,000 Artes Mundi 8 Prize which is awarded tonight in Cardiff. The Artes Mundi 8 shortlisted artists are Anna Boghiguian (Canada/Egypt); Bouchra Khalili (Morocco/France); Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria/Belgium); Trevor Paglen (USA); Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand). The exhibition runs at the National Museum Cardiff until Feb 24th 2019. New Generation Thinker Des Fitzgerald reports. Martin Crimp's play When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other is directed by Katie Mitchell and stars Cate Blanchett. It runs at the National Theatre in rep until March 2nd 2019. Producer: Luke Mulhall

"Having been surrounded by industrial objects from a young age, this has influenced my practice, approach to any practical obstacles and experimentation with ‘heavy’ materials." Could you tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been a practising artist and where did you study?I studied Fine Art Sculpture at Carmarthen School of Art, Wales; specialising in casting, construction and fabrication. There was an emphasis on traditional sculpture techniques and processes which has continued to feed into my practice as a contemporary artist. After graduating in 2014 I was keen to continue developing my practice and took up the artist in residence position in the sculpture department at the school. Over the last few years I’ve exhibited work on an international and national level including most recently at the Venice Art House Gallery; besides this I’ve experienced in depth Iron Casting at Conferences, travelling to Ireland, Latvia and most recently to Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama.Last year I completed my MFA after receiving a scholarship to study at Cardiff School of Art & Design; achieving a Distinction. However the year was a challenging experience and I found that my work shifted from previous heavily focused material experimentation and was limited at times due to space and facilities. There’s an organic approach to my practice, I try not to limit or tie myself to a specific discipline; my work currently sits at the intersection between sculpture, installation and performance.Could you tell us about your recent performance piece “Women at Work”? What was the inspiration behind it?The idea behind Women at Work came from previous research into women and industry, and how my own personal experiences of working in a foundry was predominately male dominated. The National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art & Practices became a starting point of contact for female artists who are interested in working collaboratively to explore object (domestic) and action using molten cast iron as the primal material. The focus behind this body of work was to explore material, object and gender; highlighting and questioning the consciousness of stereotypical roles as my research has begun to consider the role of women in sculpture and how female sculptors have formed relationships with material.The performance comprised of a production run pour with a female only crew. We worked specifically with domestic objects such as cake tins, dusters, sieves that were placed on long wooden tables and larger objects, the washing machine and tumble dryer became a focal point. Molten iron was poured in or over the objects becoming exposed and destroyed. The aim of Women at Work was to highlight the intense nature of foundry work, specifically iron casting; emphasising the role of women and questioning the consciousness of stereotypical roles. My experience at Sloss Furnaces evolved into an innovative approach and understanding of iron casting and how I can further engage with performance to explore an international and collaborative dialogue. Gwaith RAMUSEVANS COLLABORATIVE, 2016 Gwaith RAMUSEVANS COLLABORATIVE,2016 (detail) Inorganic Binaries, 2016 Women at Work, 2017 (detail) Women at Work, 2017 What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?I recently visited the Artes Mundi, which was held at the National Museum and Chapter in Cardiff. Neil Beloufa’s piece was a sculptural assemblage of videos as an installation exploring the parody of social interaction through the diverse subjects of extra-terrestrials, nationalism and terrorism. The work was elegantly exhibited, I was particularly drawn to the steel fabricated forms that formed the basis of the video work; the jarring dialogue between three and two dimensional approaches. Another range of works that provoked my practice was Renate Bertlmann’s solo exhibition Höhepunkte (Two Climaxes) at the Richard Saltoun Gallery. Bertlmann’s piece Bru(s)tkasten (Breast incubator), 1984; two moulded clay female breasts (encased in an 'incubator'). Her work confronts the idea of female vulnerability; the knife placed to each nipple expresses female power, and therefore rejecting the breast as a fetish. For me this body of work illustrates a unique sensitivity to material and female tropes.Tell us a bit about how you spend your day/studio routine? What is your studio like?Since leaving education I’ve found it difficult to balance my studio time whilst trying to earn a living. I try to prioritise my time during the evenings and weekends but have no specific routine. I currently share a space in my father’s garage where I have access to tools, machinery and floor space for larger works. Having been surrounded by industrial objects from a young age, this has influenced my practice, approach to any practical obstacles and experimentation with ‘heavy’ materials. At home I have a desk space where I mainly work on my journals for notes, research pointers or brief sketches; I call this my “clean” space. I regularly find myself having to balance work and my ongoing practice as an emerging artist; however I carry my journal on me wherever I go for any quiet breaks during the day to jot down any immediate ideas for future projects and new works.Where has your work been headed more recently?There seems to be two strands to my practice, collaborative and performance based work and how I can revisit previous industrial materials such as plaster and concrete. I don’t want to restrict myself or place my work in a categorized box, I work purely in the moment, time, space, and materials are all key components. Scale has always been a focal quality; previous works are much larger and weighty as I had no limitations with space. I find myself negotiating my practice at times but more recently I have been interested in evolving how the process of my work tends to involve an intensely physical approach. There is an investigation in my recent works where the confrontational and challenging social aspects of gender relations have become apparent through performative actions. How can I expand and mature to progress with future works? Wide Load, 2016 How do you go about naming your work?Personally I feel that titles are an important element of the work, they can provide the audience with a general understanding and context of a piece. My titles usually refer to how materials respond; therefore describing the action or the experience of process. With my most recent works the titles form a basis for further development of a piece as research, for example Women at Work is proposed as a series of future projects that will be re-enacted accordingly. The name is never something I spend time thinking about; it can sometimes become quite daunting when you find yourself starring at the finished work without means to an end. However the naming of work does become part of the process for me and when I finalise a name I begin to fully understand the work.Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?I’ve recently been accepted as Artist in Residence at Stiwdio Maelor in Corris, Wales, this will begin mid-August; I’ll be working in a large attic studio space for a month allowing me to focus my research and develop new work.I’m currently working on my approach to material experimentation and the aesthetic quality in my practice. My time is also dedicated to finalising a performance proposal for the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art which will be held in Scranton, Pennsylvania.lisaevansartist.comAll images courtesy of the artistInterview published 01/06/17

Den brittiske konstnären John Akomfrah fick nyligen årets Artes Mundi-pris på 40 000 pund. Hans suggestiva verk Vertigo Sea om havet som hot och hopp gjorde stort intryck på Venedigbiennalen 2015. Den stora filminstallationen Vertigo Sea började som ett försök att skapa utrymme för förståelse och empati när det gäller flyktingsituationen runt Medelhavet i dessa dagar. Från en vägg väller Vertigo Sea fram på tre stora bildskärmar. Det är överväldigande, fascinerande, vackert, skrämmande och upprörande på samma gång. Det som binder ihop alla delar i filmen är havet - en plats som både kan vara fruktansvärt hemsk men också otroligt vacker, säger John Akomfrah i Spotlight.    Han har grävt djupt i filmarkiven och hittat naturfilmer från BBC, gamla journalfilmer om isbjörnsjakt vid Spetsbergen och valfångst. Vi ser människor kastas i havet från helikoptrar av argentinsk militär och vi ser slavar som knuffas i havet från skepp för att dricksvattnet inte räcker till alla. Kerstin Berggren träffade John Akomfrah 2015 när Bildmuseet i Umeå visade Vertigo Sea som första museum efter premiären på Venedigbiennalen.

Playwright David Hare discusses his screenplay for the film Denial, starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Wilkinson, about Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt's legal battle with Holocaust denier David IrvingAs the Liverpool Everyman Repertory Company is revived, after over two decades, John talks to Artistic Director Gemma Bodinetz and actors Melanie La Barrie and Elliott Kingsley about their opening production of Fiddler on the Roof, and the history of the company, which in its previous 1970s incarnation launched the careers of Julie Walters, Jonathan Pryce and Bill Nighy. The £40,000 Artes Mundi art prize, the UK's biggest contemporary art prize, has been won by filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, who discusses his winning artwork, Auto Da Fé, which weaves together different moments over 400 years of history when communities were persecuted or driven from their land. Do dogs prefer Bach or Bob Marley? Neil Evans, professor of integrative physiology at the University of Glasgow reveals the results of a study examining canine musical preferences.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Edwina Pitman.

Artes Mundi was established in 2003 as a biennial contemporary visual arts initiative - the poet, author and playwright Owen Sheers and Catherine Fletcher, historian and New Generation Thinker, report back on the exhibition opening in Cardiff this week with work by the chosen artists including Britain's John Akomfrah, Nástio Mosquito and Bedwyr Williams.Amitav Ghosh argues that fiction writers need to be bolder in tackling the big themes of today's world and why thinking about Climate Change is proving a challenge.Harriet Walter has played Brutus and the King in Phyllida Lloyd's all-female Shakespeare productions of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Henry IV; now she takes on Prospero in The Tempest. She talks to Anne McElvoy about giving herself permission to take on roles still normally given to men and the never-ending wonder of Shakespearian verse as the entire trilogy opens in London.Plus - ahead of the American Presidential election, New Generation Thinker and historian, Ed Richardson pops up with the mesmerising story of how Hillary Clinton is very far from being the first ever female Presidential candidate.Artes Mundi 7 runs at the National MuseumWales: Cardiff 21.10.16 – 26.02.17The Shakespeare Trilogy: The Tempest, Henry IV and Julius Caesar are at the Donmar's King's Cross Theatre in London Sept 23rd - 17th December 2016Harriet Walter's book: 'Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare's Roles for Women'Amitav Ghosh 'The Great Derangement: Climate Change and Thinking the Unthinkable'.Producer: Jacqueline Smith