Podcasts about culture file

The Culture File panel explores the place of quiet and loud in the contemporary attention economy, with poet, Paula Meehan and musicians and composers, Siobhán Cleary, John Godfrey, and Christine Tobin. Recorded live at New Music Dublin 2025. (From 260425)

The Culture File panel explores the place of quiet and loud in the contemporary attention economy, with poet, Paula Meehan and musicians and composers, Siobhán Cleary, John Godfrey, and Christine Tobin. Recorded live at New Music Dublin 2025. (From 260425)

How birds and their metaphors move through the work and the lives of novelist, John Banville, art critic, Orit Gat, novelist, Sara Baume, journalist and author Paddy Woodworth. Under consideration are: The Pigeon; The Swift; The Wheatear; and The Crane. But which scribe fancies which wìngéd muse? (First broadcast Dec 24)

An ancient Irish farming tradition that sees the wisdom of leaving some farm land free from the imperatives of production --  ‘The Hare's Corner' -- is celebrated in poetry, story, discussion and music. Paddy Woodworth leads a panel featuring Jane Clarke, Catherine Cleary, Jane Carkill and Colm Mac Con Iomaire.

An ancient Irish farming tradition that sees the wisdom of leaving some farm land free from the imperatives of production --  ‘The Hare's Corner' -- is celebrated in poetry, story, discussion and music. Paddy Woodworth leads a panel featuring Jane Clarke, Catherine Cleary, Jane Carkill and Colm Mac Con Iomaire.

Outlandish Theatre Company's performance event Freedom uses the myth of Antigone to explore the act of speaking about Gaza, about the limits of art and speech. Recorded live at Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD, Dublin in November 2025.

Outlandish Theatre's latest, Freedom works with the myth of Antigone to focus on the act of speaking about Gaza, about the world in which it exists, and about the limits of art and speech. After the show's Dublin debut, the creative team gathered to explore further for the Culture File Debate.

Hamburg-born composer and pianist, Niklas Paschburg on the shortcomings of perfection and his footstamping solo piano outings.

Luke Clancy and panel make the case for loving some teeming critters of the invertebrate kingdom. Advocating for their favourites are: Rachel McKenna (shieldbugs); Liam Lysaght (wasps); Cassia Gaden Gilmartin (earwigs); and Nessa Darcy (woodlice). Recorded live at National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin as part of Dublin Book Festival.

Curator, Beulah Ezeugo takes a tour of some of the work she's brought into the big tent of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2025, including the immense quilts by artist, Jessica Zamora-Turner. Photo by Chaz Scott

Luke Clancy and panel make the case for loving some teeming critters of the invertebrate kingdom. Advocating for their favourites are: Rachel McKenna (shieldbugs); Liam Lysaght (wasps); Cassia Gaden Gilmartin (earwigs); and Nessa Darcy (woodlice). Recorded live at National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin as part of Dublin Book Festival.

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Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén on the music of a Celtic Utopia in their new documentary, plus Light Moves festival teams up with Palestinian Movement Film Festival, as well as Catherine Young Dance and the Palestinian company El Funoun, for a Palestinian dance solidarity happening.

Musical director of African Gospel Choir Dublin, Adeniyi Allen-Taylor on the ingredients of his music - and his Oba Nlá 2025 concert, showcasing his Afro-beat Orchestra.

The myths and meanings of fire with: Dr Cathy Smith of Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires; ANNEX co-founder Donal Lally; Andrew Scott, Professor of Modern and Ancient Fire Systems, and artist and performer, Rónán Ó Raghallaigh. (First broadcast 291022)

The horticultural turn in contemporary art has a long history, but the urgency with which artists address our patches of green has never been greater. Laura Ní Fhlaibhín, Sara Muthi, Helen Flanagan and Elida Maiques join Luke Clancy to discuss artists and gardens. Recorded live at Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, County Wicklow.

Culture File goes for full immersion into some extended realities at Immersive Island at Venice Film Festival, and at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria, meeting the creators of experimental experiences designed to dip users into new worlds, including the Irish team behind Irish dance gameworld, Foolish Flame.

Recorded live at Beta Festival '24, writers and artists Noam Young-rak Son, Joanna Walsh and Leon Butler to help chart recent shifts at the intersection of art, design and AI. (First broadcast 140125)

Recorded live at Beta Festival '24, artists Basil Al-Rawi and Conan McIvor, researcher Dr Autumn Brown, and historian Ciaran Wallace explore how we preserve and reimagine our cultural archives in a world of digital tools. (First broadcast 110125)

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Raina Lampkins-Fielder, the Paris-based curator behind IMMA's current Kith & Kin: The Quilts of Gee's Bend, on a few of her favourite things

The spiritual calling that is running a rave; the sylvan sci fi of Cecilia Danell; unfinished art; and Paddy Woodworth's The Naturalist's Bookshelf.

Sound artist and recordist Kate Carr talks to Culture File about her sonic practice and principles, and the importance of messy urban soundscapes.

Cityscape-appreciating sound artist ,Kate Carr, on her urban practice; Dublin-based musician-composer-carpenter, Zoe Basha on getting into and out of music; and how to play mini-golf in your "fursona" with Berlin's favorite pianist-fox, CoVahr.

For the latest version of his Culchie boy, I Love You exhibition, artist Kian Benson Bailes, has added in some ceramic flutes, with which he finds some tunes, as part of his exploration of traditional Irish culture and storytelling.

Culture File Debate broadcasts live from Eyeries Village Hall, Rachel Andrews is your host with three panelists who will give a broad and unique understanding to the myth of An Cailleach Beara (The Hag of Beara), to give listeners context to this myth ahead of the two hour Ambient Orbit following it..

The frontline of knitting, DIY monuments and macabre collections, and our latest suggestion for books to include on the ideal Naturalist's Bookshelf.

Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey, co-novelists Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché; and investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov share their favourite photographs of themselves, and explore how writers navigate self-presentation. Recorded Live at Borris Festival of Writing & Ideas 2025.

Caravaggio is celebrated this summer in Rome with a once-in-a-lifetime meetup of paintings normally living in museums around the world. Colm Toibin, Orit Gat and Luke Clancy went to see that blockbuster in the Barberini and then gathered to imagine what the painter might mean to the 21st century.

Artist, Marianne Keating on her archival voyage into the lives of Irish migrants to the UK; Tadgh O'Sullivan's further encounters with artworks that never were; and harpist, Alannah Thornburgh plays the tunes of the fairy folk.

Rachel Ní Bhraonáin reginites her award-winning dance-theatre take on the mosh and the moshers at Dublin Dance Festival; conductor Gabriel Crouch dives the fathomless depths of Jóhann Jóhannsson's enigmatic music-out-of-time choral work, Drone Mass; and Paddy Woodworth's latest book for the Naturalist's Bookshelf.

Recorded live at New Music Dublin 2025 at the NCH in Dublin, the panel explores how creative practices engage with the quiet space of loud sound, as well as the roles of quiet/loud in the contemporary attention economy, with Paula Meehan, Siobhán Cleary, John Godfrey, and Christine Tobin.

Ghost bands and circus values, with LA artist, Marnie Weber; Tadgh O'Sullivan on art that never was; and an in-the-end surprisingly pleasant visit to Berlin's Disgusting Food Museum.

Percussionist, James Larter reboots of the Four Season; the allure of ancient craft in New York; and Paddy Woodworth suggests a new old volume about New England as essential reading for today.

Veteran US cellist and improvisor, Erik Friedlander collaborates with live film score specialist, Matthew Nolan to create new music for Jean Cocteau's 1932 first venture into film.

At this year's New Music Dublin, American Irish clarinetist, Berginald Rash presents Bombast! his program of chamber music from contemporary Black and Latiné composers. He talks to Culture File about a fraunt moment for music and art in the United States, and beyond.

Classical music and hiphop meet with a bang in Belfast composer, Anselm McDonnell's latest project; the textile stories of Gee's Bend, Alabama at a new show at IMMA; and a program of premiers of chamber music from Black and Latiné composers at next month's New Music Dublin.

Pianist and composer, Ethan Iverson, formerly of The Bad Plus, on working solo, standards v hits, and the music of Igor Stravinsky. He plays The Cooler, Dublin on Friday March 14th, and Triskel, Cork on Saturday 15th.

An extended version of our conversation with Sonic Youth co-founder and explorer at the furthermost limits of the sonic spectrum, Thurston Moore, on noise, improvisation, fascism and his new guitar suite based on cloud formations, which debuts at this year's New Music Dublin festival of contemporary music.

Mulholland Drive: Anna Kornbluh ("Immediacy") joins Luke Clancy to wave Colm Tóibín off on a journey out of his comfort zone, and into David Lynch's mysterious, melancholic drift into Hollywood's dream machine/mincer.

Artist-farmer Lisa Fingleton's new exhibition takes its title from a sci-fi fruit: The Square Tomato; "corn smut" at The Third Kingdom mushroom-based restaurant in New York; and Paddy Woodworth finds a place for Olivia Laing on The Naturalist's Bookshelf.

The Culture File Debate on breath, from the need for breathable air to states of mind and body rooted in breath. Featuring IMMA's Mary Cremin; artist and climate change activist, Nina McGowan; Ireland's next Venice Biennale representative, Isabel Nolan; and Ian Robertson, co-director Global Brain Health Institute, TCD. (First broadcast 170924)

A "double emergence" of two broods of periodical cicadas near Springfield, Illinois for the first time in more than 200 years inspired a band of sound recordists, musicians, poets, composers and entomologists to gather beneath the trees to listen, record and improvise with a trillion-piece orchestra of singing critters. (First broadcast 29/06/24)

In this special All-Rembrandt-All-The-Time edition, we're in Amsterdam to join in the Netherland's celebrations of the 350th Anniversary of Rembrandt Van Rijn. The Rijksmuseum puts on display every one of its Rembrandt holdings; a treasure through which curator and Rembrandt biographer Jonathan Bikker leads Culture File. (First broadcast 15/03/19)

Recorded live at Beta Festival '24 in Dublin's Liberties, The Culture File Debate brings together artists Basil Al-Rawi and Conan McIvor, researcher Dr Autumn Brown and historian Ciaran Wallace to explore how we preserve and reimagine our cultural archives in a world of digital tools.

Walking a few momentous blocks of Dublin on the scent of a constellation of chancers, charities, literal bigwigs, choristers and 18th century It Girls that somehow resulted in the Irish capital being the venue for the premiere of Handel's Messiah.

The Irish Institute of Music and Song in Balbriggan's "Pathway to the Well" offer children in North County Dublin experiences of Irish music and tradition, such as The Fingal Mummers, who recently brought their mischievous musical theatrics to the children of Balbriggan Educate Together.

Fairy tales, they're not just for kids you know, suggests Tadhg O'Sullivan in his latest Cloud of Unknowing.

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