Momus: The Podcast

Momus
  • 4.8 (17)
  • Visual Arts
  • Updated Bimonthly

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. Aug 25

    To Build and Sustain: Publishing Roundtable – Season 9, Episode 8

    The final episode of season 9 features a live recording from Momus’s To Build and Sustain Publishing Roundtable, held at PHI in Montreal on June 26. Bringing together leaders of independent publishing initiatives across Canada and the US, the conversation asks how platforms for art writing are being shaped, challenged, and sustained in the present moment. Moderated by Tiana Reid (critic and co-editor of Pinko), the roundtable included Dr. Kemi Adeyemi (Director, The Black Embodiments Studio), Sky Goodden (Publisher, Momus), and Molly Kleiman (Director, Triple Canopy) in a wide-ranging discussion of the financial, political, and structural conditions of the field today. They also reflect on the pressures facing independent arts publishing—and the possibilities that persist within them. Together, they consider publishing as both a cultural practice and a form of civic life, and the value of art writing that is vital, rigorous, and accessible. This roundtable was the culminating public event of the 2026 Momus Convening: To Build and Sustain, a gathering of independent art publishers and editors from across Canada and the US focused on sharing resources, strengthening peer networks, and imagining more sustainable futures for critical art writing. The Convening was supported by Terra Foundation for American Art, Critical Minded, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation. Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews. Thanks to this episode’s sponsors, the Illingworth Kerr Gallery and Esker Foundation, for supporting our work.

  2. Aug 5

    Lisa Robertson – Season 9, Episode 7

    The latest episode of Momus: The Podcast features Lisa Robertson speaking about her newest publication, Riverwork (Coach House Books, 2026), in conversation with Lauren Wetmore. Robertson reads from the book and discusses writing as a process of refusal, questioning ideas of artistic "practice" in favor of fracture, explosion, and continual revision. Robertson and Wetmore also discuss late style, feminist labor, and poetry's expansive relationship to the novel. The conversation was recorded in Brussels in front of a live audience at celador, a collective space founded in 2023 by a reading group of ten curators working on the intersection of visual art and writing.  Robertson’s influential body of work spans poetry and experimental prose. Her first novel, The Baudelaire Fractal, was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Riverwork, Robertson’s much-anticipated follow-up novel, follows Lucy Frost (a writer, archivist, flaneuse, and domestic cleaner) as she takes up her disappeared great aunt’s research into the Bièvre, an ancient river under the streets of Paris. Riverwork flows through histories of industry, labor, water, and writing, propelled by Robertson’s extraordinary style.  Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews.

  3. Jun 23

    M. Neelika Jayawardane – Season 9, Episode 6

    This episode features M. Neelika Jayawardane, a writer and scholar  whose work is informed by Southern Africa’s history, and by contemporary artists and their visual worlds. Jayawardane speaks to Sky Goodden about her recent Momus feature on artist Gabrielle Goliath’s Elegy (2015–ongoing), a work of collective mourning that became newly resonant amid the attempts to silence it that played out at this year's Venice Biennale. Their conversation asks what it means to continue when neither justice nor resolution can be taken for granted. Jayawardane reflects on writing as a form of responsibility—to artists, to readers, and to one's own experience—and on why some stories demand that the writer step fully into the frame. Together, Jayawardane and Goodden discuss the unfinished work of repair, the obligations and pleasures of being read, and the unexpected role that lap swimming plays in the writing process. Jayawardane talks about using her voice to survive, and finding language for what cannot be neatly resolved. Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews. Thanks to this episode’s sponsor, PHI, for supporting our work.

  4. May 27

    Abbas Akhavan – Season 9, Episode 5

    This episode features Abbas Akhavan, a Tehran-born artist based between Montreal and Berlin, who is representing Canada at this year’s Venice Biennale. In a conversation recorded a few days before the opening, Akhavan discusses art as an ethics of encounter, the limits of language and representation, and the challenge of engaging non-human life without collapsing it into symbol or metaphor. Reflecting on institutional pressure, artistic refusal, and the importance of maintaining balance within one’s practice, he describes art as “a rehearsal, not re-enactment.” Framed by a reading from Charles Siebert’s 2016 New York Times Magazine feature “What Does a Parrot Know About PTSD?,” the conversation explores trauma, presence, and the possibility of holding intimacy without possession. Host Sky Goodden also reflects on attending a strike organized by the Art Not Genocide Alliance during the Biennale’s preview week, during which the Canadian Pavilion was one of many that closed in solidarity.  Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews. Thanks to this episode’s sponsors, Coach House Books and Esker Foundation, for supporting our work.

  5. Apr 22

    Camille Bacon – Season 9, Episode 4

    This episode features Camille Bacon, a Chicago-based writer, editor, and the co-founder of Jupiter Magazine. In a far-ranging conversation with Sky Goodden, Bacon discusses the potential and power of a “criticism in the commons,” the Black feminist constellations she’s participating in more broadly, and, as a publisher, her metrics for success. “ For me, success would be someone coming through the doors of our publication coming out the other side and being more audacious about what they demand.” Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews.

  6. Mar 17

    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.

  7. Feb 18

    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.

  8. Jan 20

    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.

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Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
17 Ratings

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
    77
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Momus: The Podcast
  • Show Website
    Momus: The Podcast

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