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Arlene Goldbard | Sophie Hope | Owen Kelly | François Matarasso
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once a week audio essays, conversations and discussions about cultural democracy, community-based art, and the commons.

  1. 3d ago

    Spirit of 68

    In this episode of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso discuss some books that have inspired or delighted them and that listeners may enjoy.  A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY EPISODE 68 | SEPTEMBER 18 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso   COMMENTARY On episode 68 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about books that have inspired or delighted them and that they think listeners will enjoy. What books are unforgettable for you? Some of these might wind up on your list.   REFERENCES Martha Nussbaum: Creating Capabilities https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Capabilities-Human-Development-Approach/dp/0674072359/ John Berger https://www.johnbergerhome.com Lukas Pairon: The Art of Positive Fatalism https://www.ederneditions.com/page-produit/the-art-of-positive-fatalism-ebook In The Camp of Angels of Freedom: What Does It Mean to be Educated (sign up for the newsletter and receive a 30% discount) https://nyupress.org/9781613321980/in-the-camp-of-angels-of-freedom/ The Raymond Williams Reader https://ebay.io/m/m4fNaC (Used copies are available, but you need to search for a good price.)

    Spirit of 68

  2. Sep 11

    Creative Commons: a journey

    In this month’s episode of Parallel Streams we listen to an episode of a podcast from 2022. The series was called Open Minds and it ran for 21 episodes. It originated from the Creative Commons organisation and was therefore published under a Creative Commons licence.   PARALLEL STREAMS EPISODE 09 | SEPTEMBER 11 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Owen Kelly | Brigitte Vézina   COMMENTARY At the time of this podcast Brigitte Vézina worked as Creative Commons’ Director of Policy, Open Culture, and GLAM. Brigitte said she felt “passionate about all things spanning culture, arts, handicraft, traditions, fashion and, of course, copyright law and policy”.   GLAM, in this context, stands for galleries, libraries, archives and museums. In her LinkedIn profile Brigitte describes her aim as “driving copyright policy change in the face of technological, social, and economic disruptions”.  Her current work involves “leading a multi-million dollar program for policy reform and capacity building to disrupt the system in which information, knowledge and culture are accessed, used, shared, and recreated digitally across the web. My mission is to influence those that make laws, policies, and norms at the international, regional (EU), and national levels to make those rules fairer, more balanced, and more supportive of the public interest”. In this episode of Open Minds she talks about her journey to Creative Commons.   REFERENCES Open Minds podcasts on Podbay https://podbay.fm/p/open-minds-from-creative-commons Open Minds on Creative Commons own website https://creativecommons.org/tag/open-minds/ OpenGLAM https://openglam.pubpub.org Wikipedia: history of Creative Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Current Creative Commons licenses https://creativecommons.org/licenses/list.en There are more links available on the page for the original podcast https://podbay.fm/p/open-minds-from-creative-commons/e/1643758172

    Creative Commons: a journey

  3. Sep 4

    Community is all we have

    Owen Kelly looks at a number of current events and relates them to the arguments that Sarah Wilson puts forward in her new book I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World.    Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse EPISODE 90 | September 5 | 2026    PARTICIPANT Owen Kelly   COMMENTARY Wendell Berry died this week at the age of 92, and so what I had planned for this episode changed to focus more on the contrast between his world view and the world view of the tech bros leading us into an irreversible climate catastrophe. The episode still draws from my reading of Sarah Wilson’s book I Eat The Stars although it no longer attempts a proper review. Perhaps that will come later. It draws together a number of different news stories: a corporate court case; a social media company selling early access to a president's posts; betting markets hiding in plain sight; a clear pattern behind online pile-ons; and a theory about disconnection and climate change. The conclusion remains the same: in the final analysis ideas of community and communal culture are all we have and we need to keep regenerating and rewilding them.   REFERENCES I Eat The Stars by Sarah Wilson https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/808096/i-eat-the-stars-by-sarah-wilson/ Your worst fears about cultural collapse might be true – here’s what you can do about it (an interview with Sarah Wilson) https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/jul/29/sarah-wilson-book-interview Spirituality+Health interview with Sarah Wilson https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/articles/2020/12/29/this-one-wild-and-precious-life-sarah-wilson NPR: Beloved writer and environmentalist Wendell Berry has died at age 92 https://www.npr.org/2026/09/01/1139228585/wendell-berry-obituary PBS NewsHour: Paid early access to Trump's posts raises insider trading questions https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/paid-early-access-to-trumps-posts-raises-insider-trading-questions MetaMask News: Top prediction market categories to watch in 2026 https://metamask.io/news/top-prediction-market-categories-2026 NPR: Judge sides with Meta in antitrust trial, will not spin off WhatsApp and Instagram https://www.npr.org/2025/11/18/nx-s1-5495626/meta-ftc-instagram-whatsapp-antitrust-ruling HHS Surgeon General: Social Media and Youth Mental Health https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/youth-mental-health/social-media/index.html New Statesman: The dangers of public shaming, mob justice and scolding on the internet https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2014/01/dangers-public-shaming-mob-justice-and-scolding-internet Axios: New book 'Commander in Cheat' goes long on Trump's golf game https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-golf-book-rick-reilly-21b439c1-2de5-4e34-9370-37d666fa9b86.html Kentucky Lantern: Kentucky writer, farmer and advocate Wendell Berry dies at 92 https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/08/31/kentucky-writer-farmer-and-advocate-wendell-berry-dies-at-92/ QuoteFancy: Top 450 Wendell Berry Quotes https://quotefancy.com/wendell-berry-quotes

    Community is all we have

  4. Aug 28

    Performance and Communication Skills

    We continue our exploration of social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama from the 1970s-2020s.  In this episode we hear from three alumni of the Performance and Communication Skills course.  Echoes and the Unsaid  EPISODE 08 | AUGUST 28 | 2026   HOSTS Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope   COMMENTARY  Sara Lee took the course in its first year, 1984, and recalls the formative placement she went on at Wormwood Scrubs prison, describing a defining moment when they played a piece of music written by one of the inmates. Paul Griffiths and Tim Steiner joined the course in 1987. Paul had been at Community Music  and participated in John Stevens' Search and Reflect workshops, and Tim had been studying music at the University of Sussex with Peter Wiegold, the artistic director of PCS.  The group reflect on their experiences of the course, with Tim and Peter discussing the disconnect between the experimental work they were doing at Guildhall and the work they were sent to do in schools and youth clubs, which they didn't find very inspiring. They recall how the PCS course was looked down on by other departments at Guildhall, and was unofficially referred to as "Piss, Crap and Shit."  They discuss the extent to which attitudes have changed, and how more needs to be done to raise the profile of the kind of work being done by musicians in society.  They discuss how this is about artists making experimental work in different contexts, collaboratively with others, rather than facilitating other people’s music.   REFERENCES Sara Lee https://irenetaylortrust.com/what-we-do/meet-the-team/office-staff-and-project-team/ Tim Steiner http://www.timsteiner.co.uk/ Paul Griffiths https://www.sco.org.uk/profile/paul-griffiths/ John Stevens Search and Reflect workshops https://www.scribd.com/document/758658457/John-Stevens-search-Reflect-1 Community Music https://future.london/organisation/community-music/ Peter Weigold https://thethirdorchestra.org/peter-wiegold School of Culture and Community Studies (now Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies), University of Sussex https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/centre-for-cultural-studies/ Music, Society, Education by Christpher Small (1977) https://muse.jhu.edu/book/1800 Loose Tubes Big Band https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_Tubes Mark Withers https://www.markwithers.net/bio Sean Gregory https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/staff/prof-sean-gregory Lincoln Abbotts https://seamusicacademy.online/profile/lincoln-abbotts/ The Messengers https://metamorphonics.co.uk/meet-the-messengers/ ImPossibilities https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/whats-on/guildhall-jazz-festival-impossibilities Portuguese Cultural Action group Ondamerala https://ondamarela.pt/en/ondamarela-2/ Listen to the Leadership episode https://www.miaaw.net/e/leadership/ Listen to the Peter Renshaw episodes: Part 1  and Part 2    Join the De-Centre mailing list

    Performance and Communication Skills

  5. Aug 21

    Eric Booth: teacher artist

    In episode 67 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview Eric Booth, a founding leader of the global field of teaching artistry and in music for social impact. A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY EPISODE 67 | AUGUST 21 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Eric Booth | Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso   COMMENTARY Eric Booth is a founding leader of the global field of teaching artistry, a wide and fast-evolving field that combines artistry with pedagogical creativity.  For over forty-five years, Eric has guided teaching artists and arts organizations in what he calls “the ancient, underutilized power” of activating artistry in individuals and communities to simultaneously create beauty, engagement, and progressive social change.  In this wide-ranging episode, we introduce listeners to a wealth of projects and ideas that often overlap with community arts and cultural democracy but may not be well-known in that field.   References Eric Booth https://www.ericbooth.net/   Making Change book https://www.teachingartistsmakingchange.com/   The Purpose Threads https://www.ericbooth.net/essays-feed/the-purpose-threads   Academy for Impact Through Music https://www.aimpowers.com/   International Teaching Artist Collaborative https://itac-collaborative.com/ ArtistYear: https://artistyear.org/   New England Teaching Artist Collaborative https://www.ne-tac.org/   Artful Learning https://leonardbernstein.com/artful-learning

    Eric Booth: teacher artist

  6. Aug 14

    Queercircle - the embodied voice

    In this month’s episode of Parallel Streams we are hosting Episode 1 of Embodied Voice, a 3 part series produced by Queer Circle and Margomool that asks: How can queer and trans+ folks find routes to vocal embodiment?    PARALLEL STREAMS EPISODE 08 | AUGUST 14 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Sophie Hope | margomool   COMMENTARY  Queercircle are an LGBTQ+ led charity working at the intersection of arts, health and social action. They have produced a podcast series entitled The Embodied Voice, hosted and produced by margomool. margomool, the narrator and editor of the podcast is a musician, vocalist, researcher and facilitator and set up the Trans Chorus in London. They describe themselves as “a British/Italian musician based in South-East London uniquely fusing jazz-inspired electronic music with hints of folk and soul”. They gravitate towards assorted influences, from Little Dragon to Dego to Beverley Glenn-Copeland, painting sonic worlds that sing to queer existence and empathy as a revolutionary tool.   The Embodied Voice series explores the vocal experiences of queer and trans people in the UK and is based on a series of workshops organised by Queer Circle. Through interviews, soundscapes and meditations, this episode explores decolonising the voice outside of whiteness, elitism and ableism in order to find more embodied states of being. The episode asks: How did we become disenfranchised from our voices? Why do so many of us stop singing and lose trust with our voices? We hear more about the racial, binary and classed expectations of voice that raises some voices and leads to the vocal disembodiment of others.   This episode  presented and produced by margomool  Recorded by margomool and Yuki Nakayama   Featuring ellc | ILĀ | Stephen Davidson  Sound design & mixing by Axel Kacoutié    References The Embodied Voice https://queercircle.org/embodied-voice Queercircle https://queercircle.org/ margomool https://www.instagram.com/margomool/ Trans Chorus https://www.instagram.com/transchorus/

    Queercircle - the embodied voice

  7. Aug 7

    I Can’t Find the Seams!

    In the previous episode Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly examined James Agee and Walker Evans classic documentary book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men from several viewpoints: as a public art project, as ethnography, as literature, and as an historical document.  In this episode Owen Kelly uses this as the starting point for an argument that locates this, and the book USA, as crucial points on the road to agentic AI.   Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse EPISODE 89 | August 7 | 2026    PARTICIPANT Owen Kelly   COMMENTARY The trilogy of novels by John Dos Passos collectively known as USA mixed fact and fiction to produce a powerful work that refused to act as “a novel” in the usual sense. Owen Kelly discusses this as the starting point in a century long move towards blurring the distinction between fact and fiction with the express purpose of baffling and demoralising people. His argument takes in the radio and television show Dragnet, Al Gore’s introduction of the metaphorical information superhighway, Daniel Dennett’s idea of the intentional stance, professional wrestling, social influencers, reality television, and agentic AI. He suggests where we might go from here. References USA, available to borrow from the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/bwb_S0-DIH-783 The 42nd Parallel, the first volume of USA is also available to borrow from the Internet Archive for those wanting to try it first. https://archive.org/details/42ndparallelusa0000john

    I Can’t Find the Seams!

  8. Jul 31

    Lux Theater presents Casablanca

    In the third episode for 2026 we use Casablanca as an example to explore how and why hit movies transferred rapidly to radio..   Friday Number 5  EPISODE 22 | JULY 31 | SERIES 2026   CAST Cecil B deMille, Owen Kelly, Alan Ladd, Hedy Lamarr   COMMENTARY On months that have a fifth Friday we break from our normal schedule. This year, as we did in 2022, we delve into the history of radio to bring back some examples that let us hear unfiltered aspects of the world as it seemed to our grandparents.  Today go back to January 24, 1944 to listen to the Lux Radio Theater version of Casablanca. This constituted the second radio adaptation. The first one lasted thirty minutes and starred the original cast: Bogart, Bergman, et al. This version lasted an hour and, because the studio said that Bogart was not available, the parts were all recast and the leads were played by Hedy Lamarr and Alan Ladd. Owen Kelly introduces the episode and explains how and why this happened.   References Old World Radio, a source of historic broadcasts https://www.oldradioworld.com Old Time Radio notes on Casablanca https://oldtime.radio/episode/lux_radio_theatre-casablanca Screen Guild Theatre version with original movie cast: https://oldtime.radio/episode/screen_guild_theater-casablanca World Radio History: downloadable publications https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Bookshelf_History.htm

    Lux Theater presents Casablanca
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About

once a week audio essays, conversations and discussions about cultural democracy, community-based art, and the commons.

Information

  • Creator
    Arlene Goldbard | Sophie Hope | Owen Kelly | François Matarasso
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Licensed as Creative Commons 4.0 CC BY-NC-SA
  • Show Website
    miaaw.net