On episode 51 of “A Culture of Possibility,” Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with David Cutler, Director of The Baring Foundation, based in London. One of Baring’s strategic grant areas is Arts & Mental Health, granting about £1 million per year over at least five years to organizations specializing in arts and creativity with people with mental health problems; supporting participatory artists from Global Majority communities in this work; and supporting more men to engage in creative mental health. They’ve published considerable material documenting this work. We’ll talk with David about how and why the Foundation chose this focus, the impact they’re having, and how their work fits into the larger arts funding landscape.

This episode was recorded live at a symposium titled ‘Listening Together: Practices for Community-Centred Listening’. The symposium was hosted by the research centre Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice at London College of Communication in February 2025. Our regular host Hannah Kemp-Welch chaired a panel with two artists: Beverley Bennett, who organises ‘gatherings’ to challenge the hierarchies inherent in workshop settings, and Sam Metz, who’s work with non-verbal participants invites listening ‘through the body’. The panel considers the question: what can we learn about listening from socially engaged artists?

Youth Landscapers Collective (YLC) operate as a youth arts organisation based in the National Forest area of England. They describe themselves as “a collective of young people, artists and technicians who collaborate with our local community to explore this landscape’s industrial past and forest future.” In the final episode of the current series of YLC Special Editions, Sophie Hope interviews Youth Landscapers’ Producer Rebecca Lee along with members Alfie Ropson and Georgia Harris-Marsh, and board member Jo Wheeler. YLC reflect on their experiences of last year’s song-making project, get into the nitty gritty around the youth-led structure of the organisation and discuss future plans.

Owen Griffiths describes himself as “an artist, workshop leader and facilitator. Using participatory and collaborative processes, his socially engaged practice explores the possibilities of art to create new frameworks, resources and systems.” From 2017-2019 he acted as co-director of Gentle/Radical, a community arts and social justice project based in Cardiff. He also leads several long-term projects.Lucy Elmes works as a Contemporary Art Curator and Producer based in Plymouth. She leads the Curatorial Programme at Take A Part, strengthening the socially engaged art sector by connecting communities with artists to co-create impactful projects. Kim Wide MBE founded, and acts as CEO and Artistic Director of, Take A Part in 2008. Hailing from Canada, Kim started her work in museums and collections at the City of Toronto and Government of Ontario Art Collection before moving to the UK in 2003.In this concluding episode of the Social Making special editions Owen, Lucy and Kim discuss with Sophie Hope and Hannah Kemp-Welch. They talk about the ways in which socially engaged art becomes part of larger social, politcal, educational and cultural streams, and how the role of the artist needs regular renegotiation. They look at their current practices, identify stress points and look forward to their possible futures.

In episode 50 of “A Culture of Possibility,” Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about a remarkable book, Engineers of the Imagination: The Welfare State Handbook. First published in 1983, it’s both an account of a novel and exciting approach to community performance and a how-to manual for anyone who wants to use or adapt its tools and methods. The book conveys the spirit and generosity of the British community arts movement during those years, and gives François and Arlene a good excuse to reminisce about the impact of this innovative and influential work in Europe and the U.S.s for the future. You are invited to respond with comments and suggestions. What do you need from the podcast?

Hector MacInnes works in socially engaged art, sound and research. His practice includes spoken word, sonic fiction, installation, text, tech, music, radio, speculative design and organising things, often in collaboration with other artists and a diverse range of communities. Hector was born and grew up on the Isle of Skye, and his projects are deeply rooted in an ongoing interrogation of belonging, identity, legitimacy and lived experience of the more-than-urban, themes he’s brought to his practice-based doctoral research into the concept of the field, anthropocene rurality, and the ‘New Weird’. In this episode, Hannah Kemp-Welch talks in depth about a project Hector has been working on in a prison (HMP Inverness), and the particular sonic environment in which this work is situated.

Youth Landscapers Collective 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.In this episode we want to give you a sense of how we work together. YLC member Kris Kirkwood has built a sound narrative of our 2024 song-making project, using audio recordings from our sessions - from the seeds of our ideas through to performance. Here’s a bit of context about the project, to help set the scene:In 2023, YLC created The Stage of Possibility – a vibrant, democratic space designed, built and curated by YLC to showcase stories and voices from the National Forest at Timber Festival. The project connected us back to the creative and resourceful communities that grew from the former coalpits and pipe works of this area. In 2024 we wanted to strengthen that connection and also perform together on the stage too! We created a set of locally inspired songs, in a project we called: WAYANNAEYINANYONNIT (A Big Story).Working with artists Rebecca Lee and Jessica Harby and our community we sought out the hidden stories of our local area, finding them in discussions with former mining engineer, pipe worker, and co-founder of Moira Replan Graham Knight, research visits to Moira Furnace Museum and The Magic Attic Community Archive, and sharing our own personal experiences. From Graham we learned stories of injustices small and large in the mine - the disappearance of cakes sent down for overtime workers and the tragic death of a young co-worker in an accident. From Clyde at Magic Attic we learnt local dialect and the definition and pronunciation of our title: WAYANNAEYINANYONNIT. More than anything we responded with heart to what it must have felt like to take part in each of these stories and what it's like to be living here today, many of our houses built over the unfilled mining tunnels.The songs we made and performed share our experience of the National Forest, as the past, present and future overlap, canaries sing, children climb on the lime kilns, new words are shouted, and we make sure we're all alright.

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.