This episode addresses two questions. How can we ensure more access and equality in the development of public spaces? How can we make certain that the voices of young people become embedded in planning processes?Sophie Hope and Hannah Kemp-Welch discuss with Ben Bordwick and Leo Valls who both made presentations at Social Making in October 2024.Note:Social Making iteration 5 took place on October 10 and 11, 2024, with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

On Episode 49 of A Culture of Possibility, François Matarasso returns from medical leave to join Arlene Goldbard in considering the podcast as its fifth year begins. They explore the intentions that have guided them so far, and talk about key questions for the future. You are invited to respond with comments and suggestions. What do you need from the podcast?

Joanne Coates practises as a socially engaged artist, using photography to ask questions about rurality and wealth inequality.Her work explores gender, class and disability, drawing on her lived experience. Projects often involve participation and varying levels of collaboration with communities. In this episode, we speak about Jo’s recent work with young women in the Yorkshire Dales and Orkney, Scotland.Alongside and intersecting with her practice, Jo works as a part-time farm labourer and runs a project called Roova, bringing together artists and communities to forge connections in rural landscapes.

Youth Landscapers Collective (YLC) is a youth arts organisation based in the National Forest area of England. We’re a collective of young people, artists and technicians who collaborate with our local community to explore this landscape’s industrial past and forest future. Together we make ambitious, creative projects to share at a variety of festivals, events, and online.
In the past nine years we’ve worked with over 50 groups and individuals, including a beekeeper, ex-miners, scouts, Derbyshire’s official fungi recorder, potters, photographers, a mushroom grower, narrowboat restorers, museum curators, community archivists, forestry workers, amateur radio enthusiasts, musicians, kiln workers, historians, wildlife recorders, filmmakers, charcoal makers, bird watchers and folk singers.
Over that time our youth members have grown in confidence and skills, developing experience and commitment to shape and direct where Youth Landscapers Collective goes next.
In this episode we introduce you to who we are and what we do via an online conversation between artist Jo Wheeler, who helped initiate YLC in 2016, and three of our Youth Council members, Alfie Ropson, Isaac Munslow and Kris Kirkwood. Alfie, Isaac and Kris have all been involved with YLC since the early days and now contribute as paid project assistants, artists, technicians and board members.

Most months have four Fridays, and we know what to do with them. We put out a podcast: a different but related one for each Friday in the month.
Sometimes, however, a month has five Fridays, and then we do something different - usually celebrating sound in one way or another.
This month we have the first Friday Number Five of 2025 and we start another irregular series of Radio Miaaw: podcasts of music issued under Creative Commons licences which we last did four years ago.
We will pick a theme for each edition. In this episode we showcase a range of music available on Tribe of Noise, based in Amsterdam and one of the longest running independent platforms for Creative Commons licensed musics.
You can find full episode notes with links to all the music at miaaw.net.

This episode addresses the question: how can we reclaim land from white colonial power structures? In it Hannah Kemp-Welch & Sophie Hope talk with Nadia Shaikh and Mark Teh, who both made presentations at Social Making 5.
Nadia Shaikh “joined Right to Roam in 2021 after 14 years in the nature conservation sector, convinced that mainstream 'nature protection' wasn't involving people in a meaningful way and that the connections between enclosure, land ownership and our devastating biodiversity loss were too big to ignore. She now lives in Scotland where she enjoys roaming free, rock pooling and kayaking. She covers the campaign’s operations, events, and work on social justice.”
Mark Teh “is a performance maker, researcher, and curator based in Malaysia. His practice is situated primarily in performance, but also operates via exhibitions, education, social interventions, writing, and curating.
He is a member of Five Arts Centre, and graduated with an MA in Art and Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London”.
In this episode Hannah, Mark, Nadia and Sophie discuss the different ways in which Right To Roam in England and the artists associated with Five Arts Centre in Kuala Lumpar approach the theory and practice of reclaiming land for democratic use.
Note:
Social Making iteration 5 took place on October 10 and 11, 2024, with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

This month, Owen Kelly joins Arlene Goldbard to discuss a report entitled “State of Culture” from Culture Action Europe, which describes itself as "the major European network of cultural networks, organisations, artists, activists, academics and policymakers. As the only intersectoral network it brings together members and strategic partners from all areas of culture. Culture Action Europe is the political voice of the cultural sector in Europe...."
The group was new to both of us, but since CAE says of itself that "we take care of the cultural ecosystem," cultural democracy is one of the tags on its website, and a few posts mentioning François Matarasso appear, we decided to study the 163-page report so you don't have to!
Tune in to find out what the political voice of the European cultural sector is thinking and saying these days.

Angharad Davies is an artist and architectural researcher, and a member of public works. Her research examines the communities that exist around local, publicly accessible spaces. She believes in architecture as biography, and writing as an architectural process.
In this episode, we hear about her long term work with communities at Rurban in Poplar, London, and the activities and approaches they use to build relationships with local residents.