Nisha Duggal is an artist working across various mediums, exploring expressions of freedom in the everyday. She is interested in the transformative qualities of making and doing, engineering situations that uncover deep-seated primitive impulses to connect.
In this episode, she tells us about Held, a multi-platform project in which she guided people to make pairs of simple, clay sculptures formed from the space within the palms of their hands. The crafting enabled her to connect and share conversations about place, land and belonging with participants.

Owen Kelly looks at three things that seem to have occurred over the last few months:
1. The failure of cultural democrats in Britain to present a manifesto, policy proposals, or cultural programme to the incoming Labour government;
2. Our collective failure to write our own narrative, and thus our reliance on perpetually opposing the dominant narrative;
3. Our continuing acceptance of just-in-time “arguing-against”, rather than developing long term strategies based on “arguing-for”.
Owen proposes we look at how the IEA moved privatisation from the shadows to the mainstream and work out how we can play the long game ourselves. He illustrates some of the possibilities with two examples: the ICAF festival and The Museum of Unrest.
He finishes by going wildly off-piste with a brief discussion of the secular benefits of henotheism in an apparent digression that turns out to play a central role in his argument.

Take A Part organises Social Making: “the UK’s only biennial symposium dedicated to socially engaged art practice, co-creation, and place-making”. For the fifth edition of the symposium Take A Part moved from their base in Plymouth to host the event in Bristol. It took place at Brix on October 10 and 11, with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Sophie Hope and Hannah Kemp-Welch recorded a conversation during a convenient coffee break on the first day of the programme with participants who included Maureen Arhin, Claudia Collins, Damien McGlynn, Tamar Millen, and Claire Tymon.
This episode looks at what brought them all to Social Making, and what lessons they drew from the first set of workshops. They offer a range of views drawn from their reactions and responses. They discuss the terms used in the presentations and how the vocabulary used can serve to frame a debate.

In episode 45 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso continue a discussion they began in episode 42. They talk about words that are used in our fields of work: how they are used, why, and the impact they may have.
This time, they focus on community, its use and misuse; intuition, discernment, and truth, three related words that hint at the search for clarity; and identity and diversity, which read differently in France where François is based than in the U.S. where Arlene lives.
Does it go without saying that each word means something different to each of the co-hosts? Every one can be used in an ideal sense which doesn’t provoke much disagreement, but it’s where the words describe practices that are far from ideal that complexity sets in.

Paul Crook is an artist, and also head of Communities and Learning at South London Gallery. We talk about his work with young people in both community art and gallery education settings, and creative strategies to facilitate listening.
Paul uses mind maps to think with young people about artworks and programmes; one young person comedically calls him a ‘Democracy Scheduler’.

Sara Selwood has worked in the publicly-funded cultural sector for over 40 years in various capacities, including as editor of the cultural policy journal Cultural Trends since it was first published in 1994. Having started out as an artist, she was an art historian and gallery director before becoming a cultural analyst and working as researcher, editor, academic and consultant.
Sara Selwood has worked in the cultural sector for over 40 years in various capacities, including as a gallery director, academic, think tank researcher and a consultant. Much of her work in that sector focuses on cultural policy and the relationship between its expectations, funding, delivery, implementation and impact. Her clients have ranged from government agencies and national museums to small, regional organisations.
She edited the international, academic journal, Cultural Trends from its inception in 1994 until 2019.
Having decided to start again she completed a BSc, majoring in natural sciences and the environment, and now works as a volunteer researcher for the government agency, Natural England.
In this episode she talks with Owen Kelly about an as-yet unpublished paper she has written exploring the nature of nature writing, its effects on nature and its effects on culture.

Guildhall De-Centre focuses on the support structures, networks and collaborations that form the basis of socially engaged practices by developing a community of researchers, practitioners, producers, teachers and administrators at Guildhall School.
Sophie Hope talks to Sean Gregory and Jo Gibson about the new De-Centre for Socially Engaged Practice and Research. They discuss the roots of this initiative, their different lines of enquiry threading through it, and approach the question of what a socially engaged, de-centred conservatoire might be and do.
The De-Centre operates under the stewardship of Guildhall School staff members who convene monthly to deliberate and make decisions collaboratively. So while this episode features Sophie, Sean and Jo telling their story, there are many more people involved who have inspired this work and who are currently making things happen.
Please see the website to find out more, and join the mailing list to get updates.

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with William Frode de la Foret, Art Director of Cork Community Art Link in Ireland for the past 30 years.
Cork Community Art Link “work with people to create a sense of community identity and collective pride enabling people to learn more about themselves and the world around them all the while having fun”. Their work aims to engage people “both as participants and spectators in public spaces, developing new ways of connecting with the arts and encouraging them to come along, learn new skills and make a creative contribution to the community”.
Arlene and François talk to William about his work in community street performance such as parades and street theatre; about building strong long-term relationships around community identity and collective pride; and about engaging people both as participants and spectators in public spaces through community art projects.