Wendy Earle is joined by architecture curator and writer Vicky Richardson, historian Kevin Yuill, art critic JJ Charlesworth and co-host Niall Crowley to discuss Tate Director Maria Balshaw's book on the state and future of museums 'The Gathering of Strangers'.

Niall Crowley is joined by Art History graduate Agnes Friend and her mother, Vicky Richardson the curator and writer to review MOCO – the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Arts.

MOCO is a new independent arts space that recently opened at Marble Arch in London, started by Dutch couple Kim and Lionel Logchies -Prin.

In this episode of Arts First, Linda Murdoch, Megan and Daniel Brick review David Ireland’s controversial new play The Fifth Step at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow, with Jack Lowden and Sean Gilder.

With Wendy Earle and Niall Crowley

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Freedom of expression is a core theme of this podcast series. Although it is a central principle of western democracy, a censorious climate is undermining it. The arts world should be a space for experimentation and freedom but has become increasingly influenced by an ‘I find that offensive’ mentality, so that artists who express ideas that run counter to dominant tropes in social media find themselves cancelled and blocked. 

In this episode Wendy Earle interviews Manick Govinda and Agnieszka Kolek about their experiences in defending and promoting freedom in the arts. Agnieszka Kolek is a co-founder of Passion for Freedom, an organisation founded in 2009 to curate festivals of artists who have faced censorship and cancellation. (https://www.passionforfreedom.art)

It has organised events in London, Denmark, Poland and New York. Manick Govinda is a curator and writer working in contemporary art and also mentoring artists. Since openly supporting the campaign to leave the EU he has found himself increasingly ostracised in the art world. 

Agnieszka and Manick talk first about their experience of censorship in the arts in Europe and the work of Passion for Freedom, and then about their work in Warsaw, Poland, where they had an opportunity to put the principles of freedom of expression into practice, as the co-curators of “Culture Tensions” at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art from January 2022 until February 2024.

However, since the change of government in Poland at the last parliamentary general election held on 15 October 2023, the ruling Law & Justice Party (PiS) was eventually defeated by the formation of a new ruling coalition government led by Donald Tusk. The new government began a programme of “settling accounts”, ousting cultural leaders from public sector jobs. This “revenge politics” led to the dismissal of The Ujazdowski Castle’s Director, Piotr Bernatowicz and his three deputy directors this summer.

The new interim director announced that “due to the changes in the programme of the [Ujazdowski Castle], we decided that the Culture Tensions project does not fit into it”. Cancel culture in Poland is not new, many artists were censored, lost their jobs and silenced under Communist rule. 

From 2021 until the summer of 2024, the Ujazdowski Castle was a beacon of free expression, reshaping Poland's cultural landscape away from the usual tropes of globalist, social justice oriented contemporary art that has gripped most of the West. Many artists, writers and curators from the UK and USA who were cancelled in the West were invited to discuss pertinent issues around arts, culture and politics, to curate exhibitions and exhibit their art at this prestigious centre for contemporary art. The Culture Tensions programme is online - for now - and can be accessed on YouTube. 

Niall Crowley is joined by David Adam - cultural and economics specialist. Dido Powell - artist and art teacher. Manick Govinda - an independent arts writer, curator and artist’s mentor. Jane Sandeman - chief operation officer at The Passage. Dr Michael Owens co-author of ‘Play the Game: How the Olympics Came to East London’....

As much as we love sports, we are in the business of talking about the arts, so why the Olympics? Quite simply, the Olympics are a global event that put the arts in the spotlight, as well as sport itself. And as we’ve stated previously, we are keen to experiment and try different formats and explore a range of subject-matter.

However, when we first discussed the idea of doing this - a couple of weeks before the games began – we were not entirely sure we would have something substantial and interesting talking about! But why wouldn’t there be? With the Olympics come great architecture and design - grand new stadiums, impressive sporting facilities and so on. Who can forget Ai Wei Wei’s incredible Birds Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics 2008? Or the fluid geometry of Zaha Hadid’s London Aquatics Centre?

Then of course there’s the opening ceremony, where the host nation draws on its best and brightest in theatre, film, costume, music, performance. Then stuffs them all into their breath-taking new stadium for the greatest, most inspiring show on the planet. We, the global and local audience, sit back while they inspire us with the retelling of their national story, remind us of our common humanity and set us up for the world’s greatest sporting spectacle. At least that’s the idea.

In Beijing a resurgent China powered onto the world stage with a polished and awe-inspiring ceremony. The UK tootled back into the global spotlight, as if on an old London bus, apologised for inventing the modern world and then threw the Queen out of a plane. Rio was supposed to put on the world’s greatest carnival but chose instead to deliver a stultifying NGO-style lecture about ‘deforestation’. And just when we were most in need of pick-me-up, Tokyo simply reflected back at us the lonely isolation of Lockdown.

Paris certainly gave us a show the likes of which we’d never seen before. And we’ve been talking, debating and arguing about it ever since. Is it the case that each successive Games comes to crystallise a growing contestation of how we understand our history, our culture and society? Well we may not have come up with all the answers but the Paris Olympics certainly gave us lots to talk about - more than we could have imagined when we originally planned the show. Joining us we have a really great panel.

David Adam is a cultural and economic specialist, whose work was at the heart of the London Olympics, organising exhibitions and cultural exchanges. He was responsible for London’s official Olympic brand at the Beijing Games. He’s an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California and the founder of Global Cities.

Dido Powell is an artist and art teacher who has exhibited widely in London and around the country. She’s regular contributor to Arts First and also organises the enormously popular and brilliant gallery tour series for the Academy of Ideas Arts and Society Forum.

Manick Govinda is an independent arts writer, advisor, creative producer, curator and artist’s mentor. He has worked with many award-winning artists in the field of contemporary visual arts and performance. Jane

Sandeman - is the chief operation officer at The Passage – a homeless charity in Westminster. She is the convenor of the Academy of Ideas’ Parents Forum. Always an insightful commentator on a range of issues, she says her family are ‘made about the Olympics’ and they are just back from Paris, having watched women’s volley ball and women’s rugby 7s.

Dr Michael Owens is a writer and lecturer with a career background in urban development. He co-authored ‘Play the Game: How the Olympics Came to East London’, building on research and his experiences working for the Mayor of London at the London Development Agency. He is a Board Member of Bow Arts Trust.

Artist Rachel Jordan talks to some artist friends about their expectations and anxieties under the new Government.

Art critic, JJ Charlesworth, leads a conversation with special guests about the Labour Party policies outlined in their document Creating Growth, which asserts that ‘people make art, policies don’t’ — but is this just a cop out from giving the arts needed support?