This month Arlene Goldbard and François Mattarasso talk with Beverly Naidus about her life and work. Beverly’s art projects focus on environmental crises that create problems for humans. Her works address social issues such as racism, consumerism, body image, nuclear threats, cultural identity.
Beverly has written several artist books including One Size Does Not Fit All (1993) and What Kinda Name is That? (1996) which has been discussed by academics in the field including Paul Von Blum, Lucy R. Lippard, and reviewed by contemporary journals.

You may or may not have heard of Nick Bostrom, but he recently issued an sort-of-apology for something he wrote twenty years ago. His sort-of-apology did not receive the applause he might have expected, but instead elicited a number of sharp responses asking what purpose he thought his sort-of-apology served.
On the other hand, you may well have heard of Harry Styles and The Maroon 5, one of whom apologised recently and one of whom didn’t.
Using these and other examples Owen Kelly inquiries into the nature of apology in an age of instant opinion and social media. How can we tell a genuine apology from hollow PR, and why and when do we feel the need to insist on apologies, or to apologise ourselves?

According to Wikipedia, David Moscow “is an American actor, producer and activist. He is best known for his role as the young Josh Baskin in the 1988 film Big and as David in the 1992 musical film Newsies”. He managed Bernie Sanders media campaigns during the 2016 US election.
In this episode he talks with Owen Kelly about how he moved from the media campaign to writing the television series and book From Scratch: Adventures in Harvesting, Hunting, Fishing and Foraging on a Fragile Planet, and what he learned from the journeys he went on.
He discusses the relationship between tradition and community, and the importance of both in different cultures from Finland to Peru.

According to the Pixelache website, Pixelache in Helsinki “is a transdisciplinary platform for emerging art, design, research and activism. It is an association of artists, cultural producers, thinkers and activists involved in the creation of emerging cultural activities. Amongst our fields of interest are: experimental interaction and electronics, code-based art and culture, grassroot organising & networks, renewable energy production/use, participatory art, open-source cultures, bioarts and art-science culture, alternative economy cultures, politics and economics of media/technology, audiovisual culture, media literacy & ecology and engaging environmental issues”.
Owen Kelly has been a member of Pixelache for ten or more years and, in fact, the original idea to develop the series of podcasts that became Miaaw grew out of a Pixelache event in which, among many other things, Owen Kelly and Sophie Hope met for the third time and plotted a series of podcasts.
Pixelache ran a series of events and initiatives throughout 2022 to celebrate its 20th birthday, and in this month’s Common Practice Owen Kelly and Irina Mutt look at the 20th anniversary celebrations through the words of Antti Ahonen, one of the founding members.

In Episode 25 of A Culture of Possibility, François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard talk with Jasmina Ibrahimovic, director of the Rotterdams Wijktheater and the International Community Arts Festival that it hosts.
Jasmina is also a dynamic force of nature who has amazing stories to tell about her journey from the former Yugoslavia to a refugee camp in the Netherlands, remarkably powerful community-based work, and much more. The festival will happen in March/April for the first time post-pandemic. Join us to learn all about it.
Moreover, we have plans to attend ICAF and (among other things) record a series of podcasts that we will broadcast almost live during the period of the festival. Stand by for news of this in the next two Miaaw Monthly newsletters.

Owen Kelly and Tomas Träskman conclude a mini-series about cultural experiments in ways of living with a discussion about micro-nations. They look at a variety of micro-nations that range from quirky hobbies and artistic performances to political activism and on to something less easily definable.
They discuss numerous examples including Sealand, which has existed for over fifty years, and Christiania, which had numerous cultural and political effects in the wider world. They also introduce many less well-known examples as well as providing links to literature on micro-nations, including the book by Erwin S. Strauss that many believe kick-started the whole movement.

François Matarasso presents an audio essay, the last in the current series, examining the depoliticisation of community art in Britain between 1970 and 2011. He wrote the essay between 2011 and 2013 and has subsequently revised it for reading here.
He argues that the Thatcher government began a concerted move to recast citizens as consumers, and to move from the communal to the strictly individual. He says that “Community art was used to describe a complex, unstable and contested practice developed by young artists and theatre makers seeking to reinvigorate an art world they saw as bourgeois at best and repressive at worst. The term fell out of favour at the beginning of the 1990s, to be replaced by the seemingly-innocuous alternative, ‘participatory arts’, though the original term is still used by some people and may even be in the process of rehabilitation”.
He produces a detailed a complex argument that uses plenty of contemporary examples ranging from Welfare State and 7:84 to ‘Swagger Jagger’, the first record by Cher Lloyd, who finished fourth in the 2010 series of The X Factor.

In 2022, on months that have a fifth Friday, we have delved into the history of radio to bring back historical examples that let us hear unfiltered aspects of the world as it seemed to our grandparents; something tangentially related to ideas of cultural democracy.
In this episode we conclude with an episode of Dragnet: “perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama in media history”, and one that translated from radio to television with equally popular results.
This episode, A Twenty Two Rifle for Christmas, broadcast on December 22, 1949, features Jack Webb as Sgt Joe Friday and Barton Yarborough as his partner, Sgt Ben Romero in a seasonal case. As always, it features an explicit, albeit paternalistic, moral (in this case, one still sadly applicable).