Momus: The Podcast

Momus
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Momus: The Podcast presents lively conversations on art writing and criticism. Hosts Sky Goodden and Lauren Wetmore speak with leading writers, publishers, editors, journalists, scholars, curators, and artists about the expanded field of art writing—why and how it is vital, difficult, political, and pleasurable. Episodes often begin with a guest reading a chosen text that has been meaningful to their own creative practice.  Since launching in 2017, Momus: The Podcast has produced more than 60 episodes. All episodes are freely available on the Momus website and through platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. New episodes drop on the third Tuesday of each month. If you would like to advertise on Momus: The Podcast, please contact Chris Andrews, Sales Director, at chrisandrews@momus.ca.

  1. 17 MAR

    Line Ajan – Season 9, Episode 3

    In this episode of Momus: The Podcast, Lauren Wetmore speaks with Line Ajan, a Franco-Syrian curator and translator and member of the editorial, artistic, and curatorial collective Qalqalah. The conversation unfolds through a reading of Iranian artist Ashkan Sepahvand’s text “Showing Without Revealing,” written for the 2017 exhibition he curated at Berlin’s Schwules Museum, which presented a decolonial perspective on institutional histories of homosexuality. Ajan discusses translating Sepahvand’s text into French with Qalqalah, whose members work across English, French, and Arabic. Reflecting on the process, she considers translation as a collaborative and situated practice and speaks about her own work across languages shaped by different colonial histories. She also brings forward the intimacy of translation as a form of reading, and the influence of writers including Sarah Rifky, Karim Kattan, Etel Adnan, and Gayatri Spivak. Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews. Thanks to Line Ajan for her contribution to this season.

    1hr 2min

  2. 18 FEB

    Jeneen Frei Njootli – Season 9, Episode 2

    Jeneen Frei Njootli joins this episode of Momus: The Podcast from their ancestral homelands in Old Crow, Yukon, a Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation community north of the Arctic Circle. Frei Njootli reflects on how life in Old Crow has shaped their artistic practice, which is deeply intertwined with community, land, and language—including the Gwich’in language, Dinjii Zhuh k’yuu. Frei Njootli shares an excerpt from fellow community member Brandon Kyikavichik’s forthcoming book, Gijiint’aii: Try Your Best, reflecting on Elder Erwin Linklater’s teachings about the generational significance of the night sky and constellations in Gwitchin life and culture. Frei Njootli describes “witnessing and being witnessed by the stars,” illustrating the intimate relationship between sky, land, and cultural knowledge in their practice. They also speak about writing as inseparable from making: a constant consideration of language that informs both thought and form, “It’s something that I don’t know how to not do.” Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews. Thanks to Jeneen Frei Njootli for their contribution to this season.

    45 min

  3. 20 JAN

    Luther Konadu – Season 9, Episode 1

    Season 9 of Momus: The Podcast launches with Luther Konadu, an artist and publisher based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Reading from an influential book in his practice—The Narrow Door (Graywolf Press, 2016), subtitled “A Memoir of Friendship,” by Paul Lisicky—Konadu speaks with Sky Goodden about the intricacies, influences, and productive frictions of working with your friends. “I think because we've known each other [a long time], any kind of criticism that can come our way is seen as a sign of love… holding each other ahead of time before we step into the world.” As the publisher of Public Parking and co-founding publisher of Carnation, Konadu also reflects on the pressures and rewards of producing art publications that respond to a regional context while operating within an international discourse—reaching beyond borders and speaking to diaspora. Threading that needle, alongside an art practice that features and involves members of his community, requires clarity, care, and a commitment to honesty. “I think maybe that's part of what attracted me to Paul's work. The very notion of talking about friendship in a book-length form is a way of talking about something that isn't talked about.” Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews. Thanks to Luther Konadu for his contribution to this season.

    49 min

  4. 17/12/2025

    Minh Nguyen and Tiana Reid – Season 8, Bonus Episode

    Tune in to a special bonus episode of Momus: The Podcast featuring a live recording from the launch of writer and critic Minh Nguyen’s new book Memorial Park: Revisiting Vietnam (Art Metropole & Wendy’s Subway, 2025). This event, co-presented by Art Metropole and Momus as part of the Momus Talks series, brought Nguyen into conversation with writer Tiana Reid to discuss writing about place, the personal as critical position, and how art criticism can open up broader cultural histories and experiences by “using art to write about something else.” More about the book from Wendy’s Subway: “Driven by a diasporic curiosity that seeks discovery over dwelling on loss, Memorial Park avoids nostalgic idealism or reflexive condemnation. Instead, Nguyen takes seriously the legacy of Vietnamese liberation by naming what it has become—and what it has not. What emerges is a complex picture of the country today and a reflection on how we inherit and reckon with radical histories that shape our world.” Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Rose Bouthillier and Chris Andrews. Thanks to this episode’s sponsor Rabkin Foundation for supporting our work. Thanks to Minh Nguyen and Tiana Reid for their contribution to this season.

    59 min

  5. 21/10/2025

    Lucy Sante – Season 8, Episode 8

    Lucy Sante joins us for the finale of Season 8. The Belgian-born American critic, writer, and artist talks about her lifelong textual engagement with an extraordinary miscellany of culture and history. Sante shares the figures that have shaped her work, from a grade-school report on Nostradamus to Barbara Epstein, her editor at the New York Review of Books, to her various writing students across twenty years of teaching at Columbia and Bard. For her “meaningful text,” Sante focuses on Manny Farber, an early inspiration whose writing "infected me from the word go." She reads from his essay “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art” (Film Culture, No. 27, Winter 1962/63), an electric ode to "termite tapeworm-fungus-moss art ... that goes always forward eating its own boundaries." Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews. Thanks to this episode’s sponsors, Rabkin Foundation, PHI, and Esker Foundation, for supporting our work. Thanks to Lucy Sante for her contribution to this season.

    53 min

  6. 16/09/2025

    Andrii Ushytskyi – Season 8, Episode 7

    In the season’s penultimate episode, we feature Andrii Ushytskyi, a Kyiv-based writer, dancer, and co-editor of Solomiya, an independent magazine founded in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ushytskyi begins by reading a short essay by Natalia Ginzburg, “The Son of Man” (Unita, 1946), and then speaks with Sky Goodden about his editorial arc and the responsiveness and faith that stewarding a publication—and writing—through a war has required. He also speaks to how the invasion has changed the nature of his writing, and how, for Ushytskyi, dance has emerged as a form of kinesthetic expression and release. Thanks to this episode’s sponsors, Rabkin Foundation and Art Toronto, for supporting our work. Thanks to Andrii Ushytskyi for his contribution to this season. And our many thanks to Jacob Irish, our editor, and Chris Andrews, for production assistance.

    56 min

  7. 19/08/2025

    Re’al Christian, JJJJJerome Ellis, and Diana SeoHyung – Season 8, Episode 6

    This special summer episode includes a live recording of the Spring issue of Post/doc, co-published by Momus and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. The collaborative issue of the VLC’s biannual publishing series for discursive, speculative, experimental writing, and artistic practices features a new sound work by artist JJJJJerome Ellis and a new text by writer Diana SeoHyung, both reflecting on the theme of intervals—on languaging, language breaks, aphasia, riffing, and repeating. This recording of the launch, which took place in early May at Storm Books & Candy, in Brooklyn, includes SeoHyung's reading of her text 가는 길: Decision to Leave / On Leaving / Leaving, and Ellis's performance of Havensong. The episode is introduced by Lauren Wetmore in conversation with Re'al Christian, Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives at the VLC, about originating Post/doc, and her own writing and editorial practice. Thanks to this episode’s sponsors, Marian Goodman Gallery and The Blue Building, for supporting our work. Thanks to JJJJJerome Ellis, Diana SeoHyung, and Re'al Christian for their contributions to this season. And as always, many thanks to Jacob Irish, our editor, and Chris Andrews, for production assistance.

    1hr 37min

  8. 15/07/2025

    Paul Chan – Season 8, Episode 5

    Paul Chan is an artist, writer, and former publisher. For this episode of Momus: The Podcast, Chan’s self-made automated doppelganger reads “Sade Today (after Judith Butler),” a piece he wrote for Evergreen (Spring/Summer 2025). He speaks to Sky Goodden about the implications of AI on writers (though they agree that criticism could present a special resistance) and his recent efforts to increase accessibility to his writing through audio recordings, while “hemlocking” its content against AI co-option. Chan also discusses the challenges of independent publishing, how he perceives writing as a form of daring, and how writing informs making. But in either case, he says, “ Choices are real choices when they're neither given nor self-evident. That, to me, is the core of what it means to think creatively.”  Thanks to this episode’s sponsor, Plug In ICA, for supporting our work. Thanks to Paul Chan for his contribution to this season. And thanks to Jacob Irish, our editor, and Chris Andrews, for production assistance.

    1hr 3min
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About

Momus: The Podcast presents lively conversations on art writing and criticism. Hosts Sky Goodden and Lauren Wetmore speak with leading writers, publishers, editors, journalists, scholars, curators, and artists about the expanded field of art writing—why and how it is vital, difficult, political, and pleasurable. Episodes often begin with a guest reading a chosen text that has been meaningful to their own creative practice.  Since launching in 2017, Momus: The Podcast has produced more than 60 episodes. All episodes are freely available on the Momus website and through platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. New episodes drop on the third Tuesday of each month. If you would like to advertise on Momus: The Podcast, please contact Chris Andrews, Sales Director, at chrisandrews@momus.ca.

Information

  • Creator
    Momus
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    72
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Momus: The Podcast
  • Show Website
    Momus: The Podcast

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