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.