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In November 2025 Sophie Hope gave a presentation at a conference called Collaborative Futures, organised in Dublin by Create. In this episode she talks with three participants to discuss the program, the outcomes,  and the possibilities inherent in the idea of collaborative futures.   MEANWHILE IN AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE EPISODE 83 | February 6 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Megan Atkinson | Sophie Hope | Silver Kezir | Damien McGlynn   COMMENTARY In November 2025 Sophie Hope made a presentation at a conference called Collaborative Futures, organised by Create in Dublin, Ireland. In this episode Sophie talks with Damien McGlynn, Director of Create; artist and scientist Silver Kezir; and artist and community worker Megan Atkinson, who all attended the conference on 19 November 2025, in the Rialto area of Dublin.  They reflect on what happened during the day; the importance of intercultural and intergenerational solidarity; the Open Space format of the event; and the significance of good catering! The conversation took place online on 12 January 2026.   REFERENCES Create website: https://www.create-ireland.ie/ Documentation of the event: https://www.create-ireland.ie/networking-day-2025-collaborative-futures/ The Artist in the Community Scheme: https://www.create-ireland.ie/programme/artist-in-the-community-scheme/ History on the F2 Centre and Fatima Mansions: https://www.fgu.ie/gallery-3 The Figures of 8 project: https://www.create-ireland.ie/projectsubpage/sharing-practice-figures-of-eight/

In the first episode of the year we embark on another journey through the golden age of radio, beginning with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in The Reluctant Tobacconist.    Friday Number Five | Episode 20 January 30 | 2026   HOST Owen Kelly COMMENTARY On months that have a fifth Friday we break from our normal schedule and produce something else related tangentially to questions of cultural democracy. In 2026 we dive once more into the golden age of radio to bring back some historical examples of serials and comedies that let us hear unfiltered aspects of the world as it seemed to our grandparents. We begin with a fine example of the ways in which motion pictures and radio worked together. Many movies became radio series, either as adaptations or as sequels or extensions. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce had made a series of succesful movies as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, and they turned this into an equally successful radio series: The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  Here we listen to The Reluctant Tobacconist, first broadcast on April 30, 1945.     REFERENCES Wikipedia: the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Archive.org Old Radio World

Jo Gibson and Sophie Hope begin a new series examining the history of social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.   Echoes and the Unsaid | Episode 01 January 23 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope   COMMENTARY This is the first episode in a nine-part series hosted by Jo Gibson (Research Fellow, Institute for Social Justice, York St John University) and Sophie Hope (co-lead of the De-centre for socially engaged practice and research at Guildhall School of Music and Drama).   For the first episode Jo and Sophie introduce their research into social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama from the 1970s to the 2020s, and give a flavour of what’s to come!   REFERENCES Introducing the De-Centre podcast on Miaaw.net Sign up to the De-centre for Socially Engaged Practice and Research mailing list More about Jo Gibson’s work More about Sophie Hope’s work Guildhall School of Music and Drama Institute for Social Justice, York St John University Our first miaaw.net podcast: Cultural Democracy in Practice

Today A Culture of Possibility celebrates its fifth anniversary with an in-depth discussion with Griselda Goldsbrough about arts in hospitals.   JANUARY 16 | SERIES 2026 A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY | EPISODE 60   PARTICIPANTS Arlene Goldbard | Griselda Goldsbrough | François Matarasso COMMENTARY Griselda Goldsbrough is a visual artist and writer, and community educator. She has over 15 years’ experience in devising and curating creative art, science and literature programmes and events.   On episode 60 of A Culture of Possibility co-hosts Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with Griselda Goldsbrough, Art and Design Development Manager of the National Arts in Hospitals Network, “a resource for arts managers in hospitals to champion hospital arts across the UK, supporting recovery and wellbeing.” The stories she tells about working with patients, staff, and others will inspire you!   REFERENCES National Arts in Hospitals Network  Griselda on LinkedIn  

The first in a new Miaaw series, in which we introduce and showcase other podcasts. In this episode the Irene Taylor Trust present Solidarity Tracks, a podcast about working with music in prisons.     PARALLEL STREAMS | EPISODE 01 JANUARY 9 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Sophie Hope | Sara Lee COMMENTARY The Irene Taylor Trust began in 1995 in memory of Irene Taylor who had a personal interest in both penal reform and music. While serving on the selection panel for the Butler Trust prison awards scheme, Irene had come across Sara Lee, who was at that time music co-ordinator at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Following Irene’s, the Taylor family decided to set up a charity that would continue to do the work that she had been so in favour of, and invited Sara to set up the Irene Taylor Trust Music in Prisons programme. Sara has led the trust’s music work ever since. Sophie Hope recently met Sara Lee, and discovered that the Trust has produced a series of podcasts that describe work that fits directly into our areas of interest. Rather than interviewing Sara, Sophie decided to ask if we could republish one of their podcasts. This has become the first in a new Miaaw series in which we invite you to listen to other podcasts we think you might enjoy; podcasts that complement, and in some cases extend, the range of actions and works we cover. REFERENCES The Irene Taylor Trust Irene Taylor Trust Youtube channel The Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Irene Taylor Trust    

Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk to Su Jones about the reactions she has received to her paper Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience, and what she hopes happens next.   Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | Episode 82 January 2nd | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Sophie Hope | Su Jones | Owen Kelly COMMENTARY Last summer Su Jones finished writing <strong>Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience</strong>, a report formed around case studies of 14 visual artists from three English regions. She had been working on it for the last two years. In this episode Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk to Su Jones about the reactions she has received, and her feelings about them. She discusses the position of an independent researcher and the influence she has, or doesn’t have. She talks about the precarious position that visual artists occupy in a country in which increasing numbers of people occupy precarious positions. Should artists receive a basic incomes, as they have in Irish experiments, or does that simply amount to special pleading? Would a better proposal involve everyone receiving a universal basic income which artists can use to enable them to practice as artists, golfers can use to practice golf, and chess players can use to practice chess? REFERENCES Su Jones: Artists’ Lives: ecologies for resistance, an overview Su Jones’ writings at Arts Professional Su Jones’ article at Arts Professional (paywall) Su Jones’ article at Arts Monthly (paywall) Ireland: basic income for artists

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about redemption: : the understanding that we can learn from experience and choose to realign some aspect of our lives to our deepest values. How much do people believe positive change is possible? How much are people’s ideas of possibility constrained by a certainty that our pasts over-determine our future?   DECEMBER 9 | SERIES 2025 STREAM A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY | EPISODE 59   PARTICIPANTS Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso COMMENTARY On episode 59 of A Culture of Possibility, co-hosts Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about redemption: the understanding that we can learn from experience and choose to realign some aspect of our lives to our deepest values. We were moved to explore this by the prevalence of “cancel culture” in the US and to an extent, the UK.  Once a phenomenon of the left, now strongly influential on the right, people are singled out and vilified for things they said or did decades earlier, or they become targets of persistent, angry campaigns aimed at shaming or ostracizing them for using objectionable language or disagreeing with those in power.  Core to community-based arts is the idea that when people speak for themselves, representing their truths, they may influence others to listen deeply and reach a more loving or just understanding.  These days, how much do people believe positive change is possible? How much are people’s ideas of possibility constrained by certainty that our pasts over-determine our futures?  We support freedom of expression and believe in redemption. Can people like us influence cultures that don’t?  REFERENCES Shadow World: anatomy of a cancellation  

When Arlene Goldbard is not being a cultural activist or a consultant, she paints. When she is not painting she writes. She writes essays and novels. Her latest novel <em>The Intercessor</em> has just come out. Owen Kelly talks to Arlene about how this specific burst of writing began, how the novel grew from the initial writing, and what she hopes the published book might achieve.   DECEMBER 5 | SERIES 2025 STREAM Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | EPISODE 81   PARTICIPANTS Arlene Goldbard | Owen Kelly COMMENTARY This month Owen Kelly discusses Arlene Goldbard’s new book, a novel titled <em>The Intercessor</em>, and asks why she chose to write this unusual kind of novel at this particular time. The novel offers a linked series of short stories, each foregrounding one character from a group whose stories eventually interlock. All of the characters have political, social or spiritual issues which come to seem less like categories than like different coloured lenses through which we can approach the world. The novel explores the Jewish Renewal movement, among other themes, without wanting its audience limited to Jews or even less to Jews with an interest in the Jewish Renewal movement. Arlene explains how this specific writing began, how the novel grew from the initial writing, and what she hopes the published book might achieve.  REFERENCES Arlene on Wikipedia  Arlene’s website  Arlene Goldbard: Clarity (2004)  Arlene Goldbard: The Wave (2013) Arlene Goldbard: The Intercessor (2025) Jewish Renewal, described on Wikipedia  Adin Steinsaltz: The Thirteen Petalled Rose

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview Laura Raicovich about Fall of Freedom, which begins on the day this podcast drops.   NOVEMBER 21 | SERIES 2025 STREAM A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY | EPISODE 58   PARTICIPANTS Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso | Laura Raicovich COMMENTARY On episode 58 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with writer and curator Laura Raicovich, one of the initiators of Fall of Freedom, an action beginning 21 November in the US, described as “an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation,” “activating a nationwide wave of creative resistance.”  Artists and organizations are invited to participate by hosting public events of any size. We’ll talk about the organizers’ hopes and their sense of why and how art can resist authoritarianism. Since this podcast goes out on November 21, it could not be timelier. Listen to the podcast, go to miaaw.net to get the links, and then look and see what is going on where you are!  REFERENCES Fall of Freedom website Download the Fall of Freedom Toolkit    

This month Owen Kelly looks at some of the deeper meanings of Katie Lam’s recent remarks on cultural coherence.   NOVEMBER 7 | SERIES 2025 STREAM Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | EPISODE 80   PARTICIPANT Owen Kelly COMMENTARY In this episode Owen Kelly looks into the idea of cultural coherence, something that bubbled to the surface after Katie Lam, a member of parliament for the Conservative Party used it in an interview with the Sunday Times. She appeared to use it one way, and then later claimed she meant it in a rather different way. What do people mean by cultural coherence? Should we regard the idea as dog-whistle politics, or should we see it as a useful idea we need to claim for ourselves, before it gets claimed by those who would whistle to dogs… REFERENCES Sam Leith: In Defence of the Rules-based Order, in The Spectator  Tali Fraser: The Tories and the search for cultural coherence on ConservativeHome The Sustainability Directory

In this episode we explore Faircamp again, trying to find something to celebrate halloween. Then we take a peep at what we can find at Tribe of Noise.    OCTOBER 31 | SERIES 2025 STREAM Friday Number Five | EPISODE 19   HOST Owen Kelly COMMENTARY Today (or tonight, depending on where you are) we have the final Friday Number Five of 2025. At the end of January we started another irregular series of Radio Miaaw: podcasts of music issued under Creative Commons licences; a theme we last explored four years ago.   This month have another dive into the contents you can find while exploring the Faircamp web ring. This covers a wide range of music so if one piece doesn’t grab you then rest assured: something different will be along in a minute or so. Since today is Halloween we also try to find some suitable music, fail, and see what we can find at Tribe of Noise instead.  REFERENCES The Faircamp website The Faircamp webring FAQ Johann Bourquenez: Diminished Epicness & more Blix Byrd, including Skinning a Tiger Voodoo Economics, the EP Nightmother: The Beach Boys In My Room A Companion of Owls: Sketches for Aural Ataraxia Ruby Louise Rose: projects, downloads, works in progress Helen Bell at Faircamp Helen Bell at Bandcamp Helen Bell: Molecule Olive: Halloween Party v2.0 at Tribe of Noise Rob Dell Music: I do believe in Christmas at Tribe of Noise

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview Betsy Damon whose work with water has had a healing impact across the globe. She talks about her work from early projects in China to her current undertakings.   OCTOBER 17 | SERIES 2025 STREAM A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY | EPISODE 57 PARTICIPANTS   Betsy Damon | Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso COMMENTARY Betsy Damon is an internationally-recognized artist whose public work and living systems, such as the Living Water Garden, have received widespread acclaim.  In 1991 Damon founded Keepers of the Waters,[23] a nonprofit organization that serves as an international community to encourage "art, science and community projects for the understanding and remediation of living water systems." The nonprofit is run with a collaborative approach and was started with the support of the Hubert Humphrey Institute. In 2006, Damon, alongside a group of artists, scientists, and funders, met in Vancouver and created a summary report for UNESCO titled <strong>Art in Ecology – A Think Tank on Arts and Sustainability.</strong> UNESCO had commissioned a report in advance of this meeting titled <em>Mapping the Terrain of Contemporary EcoART Practice</em>, of which the meeting and summary report were a result. She is the author of <strong>Water Talks: Empowering Communities to Know, Restore, and Preserve their Waters.</strong> On episode 57 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview Betsy Damon.  Her work with water has had a healing impact across the globe and in this fascinating episode, she talks about her early projects in China and the work she’s undertaking now.  She also shares excellent advice for others who want to help.   REFERENCES   Betsy Damon’s website Betsy Damon’s CV Betsy Damon in Wikipedia  

Susan Jones works as an independent arts researcher and writer who holds specialist knowledge and insight about the social and political environment for artists and contemporary visual arts. She has just completed her independent qualitative and longitudinal study Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience, formed around case studies of 14 visual artists from three English regions. She has been working on it for the last two years. She argues that successive policies since have marginalised artists’ position in the infrastructures and ‘ecology’ of the arts. Arts policy’s ‘market economy’ approach has the effect of undermining its stated aspirations to demonstrate equity and inclusion across the arts. Owen Kelly reviews a pre-publication version of the report, and comments on it. He notes that, rather than “the usual suspects”, the report has been sup­port­ed by Axisweb, CAMP: con­tem­po­rary art mem­ber­ship plat­form, and Cre­ative Land Trust.

On episode 56 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso offer their third podcast in a series about censorship and related issues, following on episode 54 with writer Jeff Chang and episode 55 with muralists Amber Hansen and Reyna Hernandez. Arlene and François talk about their own direct experiences with these issues, including times community artists had to chose which aspects of a project to share or not, and times when establishment arts forces suppressed cultural policies because they objected to cultural democracy principles. It’s not only art that’s vulnerable, but also ideas about art and culture!

According to Wikipedia, Jon Savage “is an English writer, broadcaster and music journalist, best known for his book about the Sex Pistols and punk music, England's Dreaming”. He has also written a lengthy and very detailed book called Teenage: the creation of youth 1875 - 1945, and in this episode Owen Kelly looks at that, and points to some of the many interesting and useful connections and examples that Savage has dug up. The blurb on the back of the book says that “Savage fuses popular culture, politics, and social history into a stunning chronicle of modern life”. Certainly it provides a mass of detailed examples drawn from an extraordinarily wide range of sources, that will provide many surprises for everyone who has not spent the last decade reading exactly the same sources as Jon Savage.

Oh look its the fifth Friday of August. That must mean its time for another episode of Friday Number 5! At the end of January we started another irregular series of Radio Miaaw: podcasts of music issued under Creative Commons licences; a theme we last explored four years ago. This month we have another unexpected surprise. We have found Faircamp, which aims to achieve something similar to Bandcamp, without any corporate shennanigans. If you want to distribute your music online then you can download as a free open-source software. It allows you to create your own website in fifteen or so minutes, with no previous experience. More interestingly, the website has a web ring built into it, so you join a community as soon as you put your site online. In this episode we explain what a webring is, and then dive into some of the music available on the Faircamp webring. In the time available we barely touch the surface.

On episode 55 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso host muralists Amber Hansen and Reyna Hernandez, who were the first interviewees on the podcast! Following on Episode 54, in which Jeff Chang detailed the censorship of his book by the US Department of Defense, Amber and Reyna talked about the more local or subtle forms of pressure to censor or self-censor, such as agencies that commission community murals and then withdraw because they don’t like the subject matter. When and how is expression limited by those in power and when and how is artists’ work shaped by considerations or controversy or empathy?

Miriam Toews is a Canadian author, and Fight Night is her seventh novel. It tells the story of a grandmother, a pregnant mother, and her young daughter who find themselves living together as an intergenerational family while having to cope with life-changing situations. It reads as a comedy and a commentary. It feels hilarious and deeply moving. Owen Kelly suggests reasons why you should find a copy and add it to your holiday reading.

On episode 54 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview author Jeff Chang, known for his books on cultural subjects including hip-hop, race and racism, and Asian Americans. In May, Jeff posted to his Substack an account of how the Defense Department had removed his book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A Hip Hop History, written for young adults, from schools on US military bases around the world. The reasons given were Trump’s executive orders banning accounts of racism, gender and sexuality, and other such topics. Jeff joins us to tell the story and talk about what it means for the future of free expression and diversity.

In this episode Sophie Hope talks to artist, researcher and teacher Anthony Schrag about a symposium he organised on 9 May 2025 at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. The symposium, entitled Getting it right/Getting it wrong: Socially Engaged Art and Ethics was supported by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Sophie attended the symposium and in this discussion she and Anthony reflect on some of the discussions that they took part in during the event. They reflect on what ethics means to practitioners and their practice, and to assessors and onlookers.