In the Studio

Eric van Hove makes sculpture that goes “vroom”. For the past few years, this conceptual artist has been working in Morocco on a project called the Mahjouba Initiative, which involves building a series of motorbikes using only traditional craft materials. Eric calls this work “a socio-economic sculpture”, the idea being that the pieces can be exhibited as artworks but also used as the prototype for a new vehicle.

Anna McNamee meets Eric and his team as he works on the latest model – the Mahjouba III – which was to be put on show at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in Marrakech in 2018.

This story was recorded back in December 2017.

Lisa Reihana is one of New Zealand’s most important artists. Her work, In Pursuit of Venus [infected] became one of the highlights of the 2017 Venice Biennale. It is a 26 metre long animated wallpaper that was many years in the making - a reinterpretation of a 200-year-old panoramic wallpaper created by Joseph Dufour that painted an exotic portrait of the life of Pacific people as described by Captain Cook.

In this story - recorded back in 2017 - Lisa is working on a short 3D film titled Nomads of the Sea which again looks at the meeting of two cultures, featuring an epic encounter between two female warriors. Presenter Tim Marlow joins Lisa Reihana in her New Zealand studio to talk about art, film and creativity.

The Colombian novelist and journalist Juan Gabriel Vásquez is widely regarded as one of the most important Latin American writers today – known for his novels published in 28 languages, including the award-winning The Sound Of Things Falling, The Shape of the Ruins, and five other works of fiction, plus stories, literary essays, and political commentary.

Born outside the capital city of Bogotá and having lived there as a student, Vásquez says it's a place that helped shaped his creative life and consciousness as a writer. After 16 years in Paris and Spain, he returned to Colombia to live and write. Now, as he embarks on his latest novel due to be published in December, Natalia Guerrero talks to Vasquez in Bogotá to find out how he works on his books.

As he writes he describes his creative process from thought to page and start to finish. We hear how Bogotá has influenced his writing as "a life calling" with "literature in the centre of my life"; and how he keeps to a daily writing routine – including wearing noise-cancelling headphones so that he can have the silence he needs to create his work.

And there are the very intimate moments of writing the final words and sharing his new book with its very first reader - his wife.

What does it take to prepare a new stand-up show for the world’s biggest comedy festival? Loyiso Gola is one of South Africa’s most loved comedians - he's performed across the globe and his satirical TV show Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola has had two Emmy nominations, one of television’s greatest accolades.

In this story, recorded back in 2017, In the Studio follows Loyiso as he embarks on the challenge of taking his show, Unlearning, to the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. With Unlearning, Loyiso takes on those everyday ideas that we’ve learnt throughout our lives, such as who we are as people and how our perceptions of culture and history, race and politics shape how we see and treat each other. But how do you make an audience laugh for an hour, as well as question their perception of the world?

Australian artist and director Lynette Wallworth loves to push the limits of technology and works with mixed reality developers, inventing new ways of experiencing art.

Back in the Summer of 2018, Laura Hubber joined Lynette as she worked with the team at the Technicolour Experience Center in Los Angeles, to create a new immersive interactive walk around section to her film Awavena.

Awavena explores the way of life led by the Yawanawa community of the Amazon and their first female Shaman Hushahu. The new section was shown for the first time at the Venice Film Festival that year.

The young Vietnamese writer Ocean Vuong has been called “one of our most gifted poets”. He came to public attention when his poetry collection “Night Sky With Exit Wounds” was showered with awards. His first novel “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” followed last year and has also been critically acclaimed.

Ocean’s work often mirrors his own experience as an immigrant. He was born in Saigon, Vietnam but at a young age he and members of his family left Vietnam, as refugees for the United States. After attempting a degree in business, Ocean found his true vocation as a writer and now divides his time between creating new work and teaching university students.

Oonagh Cousins talks to Ocean about the way he creates his work, how ideas and images come to him and the importance of being uncomfortable when he’s writing.

Before face masks became compulsory for many of the world’s citizens, the Norwegian music producer and DJ Alan Walker was known for wearing a face covering on stage. It lent an air of mystery to his persona but there’s been no mystery about the popularity of the music he makes. From his first hit Faded, which has been streamed over a billion times, to packed-out stage gigs the world over and recent collaborations with musical giants like film composer Hans Zimmer, Alan – who’s still in his early 20s – has become a global phenomenon.

Recorded during a visit to London, long before Covid-19 devastated live shows, Alan talks to John Wilson about his early upbringing in the UK, how he creates his music, and the crucial importance of ‘the drop’ to electronic dance music.

Eighteen months ago the work of South African artist, Nelson Makamo, featured on the iconic cover of Time magazine. It placed the already popular artist - with fans like Oprah Winfrey, Ava DuVernay and Giorgio Armani – firmly onto the global stage.

The painting Makamo created for the cover was of Mapule, his now 12 year old cousin, who he’s been painting ever since she was a child. In a touching and practical exchange, he pays for Mapule’s studies.

As he prepares for an exhibition, In the Studio’s Mpho Lakaje meets Nelson at his studio in Johannesburg, to watch him at work and discover why he so often places children from rural South Africa centre stage.

U.S. daily television soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful has been running since 1987, and at roughly 8,300 episodes and counting is a huge hit all around the world, making 250 new programmes a year.

When coronavirus hit, filming stopped as the industry went into lockdown, but the makers are pioneering new creative ground as they go back into production in Los Angeles, and onto our television screens, at a time when Coronavirus is still rife.

Laura Hubber follows the producers, directors and actors of the daily soap, which includes a lot of intimate scenes, as they use their Hollywood creativity to get the series safely back on air.

How can they show an on-screen kiss in a world of masks and social distancing? We hear about a ‘new normal’ where actors’ real-life partners’ now work as ‘kissing doubles’, joined by a cast of mannequins, dedicated Coronavirus Coordinators, and strict new acting rules.

Costas Cacoyannis is one of Cyprus’s most prolific composers – turn on the TV or head to the cinema on the Mediterranean island and there’s a good chance you’ll hear his music. Add to that his compositions for ballet, theatre, Hollywood soundtracks, and the more than 25 albums he has released and you get a sense of the scale of his creativity.

He lives and works from his studio high up in the Troodos Mountains in central Cyprus and it’s there that the BBC’s Karl Bos went to meet Costas in 2018, as he prepared for a major performance of his music that June - his biggest live concert in over 18 years - at the Maison de l'UNESCO in Paris.

Follow Costas on a walk through a nearby forest as he derives inspiration from nature, then to a rehearsal in Limassol with his choir, as he guides them on how to express and perform his music as the concert quickly approaches.