Somerset House Podcast Somerset House

How can cuteness be used to sugar coat difficult messages? 

In this episode we join another artist commissioned for the Somerset House exhibition CUTE, Brooklyn based Sean-Kierre Lyons, to explore how cute characters have been used to tackle sensitive ideas from the middle ages on.  In her practice, Sean-Kierre brings the grotesque and the cute together to approach challenging themes. Much of her work is inspired by cartoon animation, specifically its roots in racist caricature. For her Somerset House installation Sean-Kierre created a dragon-like gargoyle called Benevolence, one of nine protector gods she is developing, inspired by the 90s cartoon ‘Gargoyles’

Here Sean-Kierre exposes the double edged sword of cute, looking at how cute characters have been used to mask malicious intent, as in the case of the animated characters used in war propaganda, as well as to deliver moral reminders, as far back as medieval masonry. She talks to animator of the Big Blue, Gyimah Gariba about how he uses cuteness to demonstrate the vulnerability of earth’s climate and art historian Dr Janetta Rebold Benton explains how gargoyles could be thought to be a form of cartoons of the middle ages.

Contains strong language from the start. 

CUTE: An Exhibition Exploring the Irresistible Force of Cuteness in Contemporary Culture, at Somerset House, 25 Jan - 14 Apr 2024.
Principal Partner: Sanrio

Producer - Alannah Chance
Exec Producer - Eleanor Ritter-Scott
Series presenter - Laurent John

Hannah Diamond reflects on the transformative powers of cute

Cute aesthetics have exploded into pop culture. We use filters to make ourselves look like cute cats, dot our texts with hearts and smiley faces and our phones ping with alerts from cartoon animals reminding us to study French or change energy suppliers. Brands have been using cute images to sell us things since the dawn of advertising but with the rise of social media we are increasingly becoming the brand, as we seek to cutify our online and IRL selves. Over the last ten years the music collective and label PC Music have been playing with the aesthetics of pop music, internet culture and consumerism to suggest that artifice doesn’t need to be inauthentic. Artist and musician Hannah Diamond is one of the founding members, known for her hyper-real, hyper-pop art direction and an ear for sugary hooks. For CUTE, an exhibition at Somerset House, Hannah was commissioned to curate a room in the style of a girl’s sleepover accompanied by a stream of music videos that embody the power of cute. In this episode we go deeper into the ways pop music and cuteness intersect, celebrating the ways plasticity can be liberating rather than limiting. Hannah talks to fellow label affiliate Hayden Dunham, the brains behind the Hey QT project, about self transformation through world building and Dazed journalist Gunseli Yalcinkaya explains why the internet has such an enduring obsession with cute.

CUTE: An Exhibition Exploring the Irresistible Force of Cuteness in Contemporary Culture, at Somerset House, 25 Jan - 14 Apr 2024.
Principal Partner: Sanrio

Producer - Alannah Chance
Exec Producer - Eleanor Ritter-Scott
Series presenter - Laurent John

What does it mean to use the voice of others within a performance, text or recording? In this episode of Not Strictly Speaking, we look at the ways in which the voice is used both in service of power, and as a way of reclaiming agency.

Prem Sahib’s new sound performance for Assembly, Alleus, takes a speech by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and renders it into a new form through layers of processing and repetition, suggesting the idea of a curse or malediction. Resisting the idea that one hostile voice can speak for the many, Prem explores how political rhetoric can speak on behalf of others, and take possession of bodies at a distance.

Composer and sound artist Felicia Atkinson, who has composed the sound across the podcast series, considers the boundaries between thought and speech, looking at how recorded speech and text can intertwine. Felicia’s work with voice plays with space, distance and found sound, inviting the everyday into her recordings. In this episode, she discusses the role the voice plays within her work, the writers who live within her and how the recorded voice can be slippery and shapeshifting.

Alleus by Prem Sahib was co-commissioned and presented by the Roberts Institute of Art and Somerset House Studios as part of Assembly, 2024.

Not Strictly Speaking Series 
The voice is the first sound we encounter and the first instrument we learn to play, we are subject to the disembodied voice of politicians while the communal voice is raised in protest.  In conjunction with this year’s Assembly at Somerset House, this 3 part podcast series explores different manifestations of the voice and how it informs our ways of thinking. 

Each episode follows one artist featured in the 2024 programme, as they unpack their work with the voice in dialogue with another artist. Vocalist and composer Elaine Mitchener is joined by the pioneer of extended vocal technique Joan La Barbara to explore the voice as an instrument, looking at how the human voice can channel meaning without words. Artist Prem Sahib plays with the shape shifting nature of political speech and its potential to inhabit other bodies alongside composer Felicia Atkinson on the mercurial nature of recording, while the vocal work of sound artist Vivienne Griffin is placed in dialogue with artist Helen Cammock on the concept of the voice as a site of resistance. 

The sound for the series is composed by French composer and sound artist Felicia Atkinson who crafts a series of bespoke sound commissions for each episode.

Commissioned by Somerset House Studios
Producer - Alannah Chance
Exec Producer - Eleanor Ritter-Scott
Series Composer - Felicia Atkinson
Mix - Harry Murdoch

The communal voice has a long history within the resistance movement, from African American spirituals, to the protest songs of the civil rights movement and the current pro-Palestine marches. In this episode we explore the enduring power of group singing and how it can embody resistance and resilience with Turner prize winning artist Helen Cammock and artist and Somerset House Studios resident, Vivienne Griffin.  

Vivienne's sound work often centres around the voice, both her own and those of small choral ensembles. For their piece for Assembly they are drawing on the voice of the harp as a symbol of resistance within the history of British colonialism.  The work will be performed by Northern Irish harpist Úna Monaghan alongside a mechanised harp created by Vivienne, who will together interpret a text score. 

Helen Cammock works across film, printmaking, performance and writing. Her work explores the role of the voice within the creation and maintenance of power structures as well as how the communal voice can subvert the dominant narratives of history. Here Helen unpacks how her work with communal voice has interrogated the idea of the voice as a site of resistance and the body as resilience.

Not Strictly Speaking Series
The voice is the first sound we encounter and the first instrument we learn to play, we are subject to the disembodied voice of politicians while the communal voice is raised in protest.  In conjunction with this year’s Assembly at Somerset House, this 3 part podcast series explores different manifestations of the voice and how it informs our ways of thinking.

Each episode follows one artist featured in the 2024 programme, as they unpack their work with the voice in dialogue with another artist. Vocalist and composer Elaine Mitchener is joined by the pioneer of extended vocal technique Joan La Barbara to explore the voice as an instrument, looking at how the human voice can channel meaning without words. Artist Prem Sahib plays with the shape shifting nature of political speech and its potential to inhabit other bodies alongside composer Felicia Atkinson on the mercurial nature of recording, while the vocal work of sound artist Vivienne Griffin is placed in dialogue with artist Helen Cammock on the concept of the voice as a site of resistance.

The sound for the series is composed by French composer and sound artist Felicia Atkinson who crafts a series of bespoke sound commissions for each episode.

Commissioned by Somerset House Studios
Producer - Alannah Chance
Exec Producer - Eleanor Ritter-Scott
Series Composer - Felicia Atkinson
Mix - Harry Murdoch

A three-part podcast series exploring different manifestations of the voice in response to the Assembly programme. Each episode follows an artist featured in the 2024 programme as they unpack the power of the voice beyond speech, in dialogue with a number of guests.

A three-part podcast series, released 20-22 March 2024, exploring different manifestations of the voice, produced in conjunction with Somerset House Studios' Assembly.

Each episode follows artists featured in the 2024 programme, as they unpack the power of the voice beyond speech; examining it as a form of possession and how we might give voice to the inanimate.  

Vocal artist and composer Elaine Mitchener looks at how the human voice can extend through objects and lay bare the inequities of global supply chains. Artist Prem Sahib plays with the shape shifting nature of political speech and its potential to inhabit other bodies, while sound artist Vivienne Griffin shares research centred on the concept of the harp as a voice of resistance. 

The sound for the series is composed by French artist Felicia Atkinson who crafts a series of bespoke sound commissions in response to the theme.