In the Studio

Yuri Herrera is a political scientist, editor, and prize-winning novelist, considered one of the most relevant Mexican writers in the Spanish language. When we meet him he's starting his new novel, which he says will take him in a different direction to his previous books, basing it on Benito Juarez, the first President of Mexico of indigenous origin. What's less known about him is that he was exiled briefly, in 1853, to New Orleans where Yuri now lives. We join him as he walks the streets Benito would have walked, searching for inspiration as he embarks on his writing.

This week, an update on our guest, a Dutch icon - The Night Watch. This masterpiece by Rembrandt is nearly 400 years old and sits centre stage at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where more than 2 million visitors come to see it every year. So when it became clear the painting needed a serious makeover, taking years to complete, the idea of removing it from display was rejected. Instead the museum’s Director, Taco Dibbits, decided to make Operation Night Watch accessible to all, by building a specially-constructed glass chamber for restorers, scientists and conservators to work under the public's watchful eye; both in the museum and online. Anik See follows Taco and his team during this key phase of Operation Night Watch, diving into state-of-the-art imaging techniques and discovering the masterpiece’s secrets and storied past, to find out why this painting remains so important to us. After her initial report on the restoration process, Anik returns two years later to see what progress has been made.

Cercle is one of the most respected live-streaming platforms in dance music, broadcasting performances in breathtaking locations to tens of millions of viewers across the globe. From hot air balloons to mountain tops, waterfalls, world-heritage sites, and under the Northern Lights in the arctic circle. Part videographers and music curators, part adrenaline junkies, Cercle blend sound with mind-blowing images and aesthetic, creating audio-visual experiences in which viewers are immersed from start to finish. Broadcaster and DJ Frank McWeeny follows founder Derek Barbolla and his team of creatives for nine months, as they plan and broadcast a show under a waterfall in a remote part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. What makes it a perfect location? How is the artist selected? And with multiple cameras, drones, and a live audience of one thousand, how difficult is it to capture? From the importance of colour to the best time of day to film, we uncover the technical and logistical challenges of pulling off a production of this magnitude.

After nearly 20 years of planning, in June 2022 Norway will open its new National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. The building will merge four museums and galleries into one space. The new National Museum will contain Norway's biggest collection of art, architecture and design. It will display over 6,500 works, from antiquity to the museum’s most recent contemporary acquisitions. Discover what it takes to launch a new world-leading cultural collection. In The Studio follows Stina Högkvist , Director of Collections, as well as curators, conservators and museum staff as they prepare for the grand opening. The National Museum will be topped by a huge 'Light Hall' displaying the work of 147 contemporary Norwegian artists in a special opening exhibition entitled ‘I Call It Art’. As the deadline draws nearer Stina negotiates test events, oversees installations, works with artists and adapts to the changing international situation. The pieces will be on display in an exhibition spanning 55,000 sq metres and 89 rooms, the largest art museum in the Nordic countries. Other exhibitions followed include a collection from the painter Edvard Munch, creator of 'The Scream', loans from the world leading art collection of the Fredriksen family and pieces by Norwegian designer Peter Dundas, who has styled Michelle Obama and Kim Kardashian.

The artist Sonia Boyce has just won the top prize at the Venice Biennale, the Olympics of the art world, where she has been representing Great Britain in a commission for the British Council. Sonia is a multidisciplinary practitioner known for working with audio, video, wallpaper and print. For this project she has been collaborating with four female singers at the famous Abbey Road studios in London, recording a piece of sonic art. It’s part of her award-winning exhibition in Venice called Feeling Her Way. Join the BBC’s Anna Bailey as she follows Sonia on her artistic journey from recording, installing and opening her work at the British Pavilion. Presented and produced by Anna Bailey for the BBC World Service Executive producer: Rebecca Armstrong

The Met Gala is an annual fundraiser for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City. Each year it marks the opening of The Costume Institute’s spring exhibition and is widely regarded as one of the most exclusive social events in the world. This year’s theme is 'In America: An Anthology of Fashion', the second in the two-part exhibition. The exhibition follows 'In America: A Lexicon of Fashion', which opened last year and remains on view with part two. This year the focus is on American fashion and Andrew Bolton, The Costume Institute’s head curator, his team and curators from The Met’s American Wing are working with film directors to create different cinematic scenes, installed as still vignettes across 13 period rooms. Each room depicts a different period of history in the world of American fashion. The nine film directors involved include Sofia Coppola, Martin Scorsese and last year's Oscar winner Chloé Zhao. Reporter, Kizzy Cox, has behind-the-scenes access shadowing the team, as they create the exhibition, bringing Andrew Bolton’s vision to life. She also chats to film director Chloé Zhao about how she goes about creating the Shaker Retiring Room vignette.

In the Studio meets S-X, the Grammy-nominated British record producer and singer-songwriter, as he prepares to launch his career as a solo artist and release his debut album. As a sought-after record producer, S-X, born Sam Gumbley, has worked with the likes of Chance the Rapper, KSI, Skepta, Childish Gambino, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj. Laura Sanders follows Sam as he works to transform himself from producer to front-man and show the world who S-X is. Sam demonstrates how he comes up with his tracks, from the first beat to the finishing touches - sometimes using just a podcast mic and laptop. Laura learns some of the tricks of the trade as she goes behind the scenes and watches Sam at work in his Wolverhampton studio as he pieces together his hotly anticipated studio album. He discusses his bi-polar disorder and how he differentiates between his on-stage character S-X and his quieter self, Sam Gumbley. He reveals why he composes his songs on the voice note function on his mobile phone, what it's like to turn your hobby into a job and why that's not always a good thing. He explains why he rarely composes a track before he gets into studio and why waiting around for something to happen can be a bad idea. Plus, we hear tracks from his new album Who We Are, as they're being recorded.

Paco Peña, regarded as one of the world's foremost traditional flamenco players, is coming back to Sadler's Wells Theatre in London with Solera, his new flamenco show, devised in collaboration with long-time friend and theatre director Jude Kelly. Their work aims to showcase the raw talent of young artists, tempered by the understated authority of an older, wiser generation. Solera, the title of this production, refers to the solera process of ageing liquids such as wine. Andalucía, in Southern Spain, where Paco was born, has for generations produced fine wines using a method that stacks oak barrels in several layers. Young wine enters the highest barrel and given time flows down, nurturing its best qualities, until what remains is a delicious wine that can only be achieved with age. The mature solera of the older generations enriches and refines the best qualities handed down to the young. Flamenco is not a written tradition, but one handed down from one generation to the next, constantly striving to find different ways to express; the best of performances will incorporate part of what has been created before by the great practitioners of the past.

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is an award-winning Vietnamese writer whose debut novel The Mountains Sing, published in English in 2020, won the International Book Awards in 2021 and was runner-up in the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. It portrays the lives of four generations of a Vietnamese family enduring many hardships, something she understands well from her own upbringing. In conversation with presenter Felicity Finch, Quế Mai shares her writing process as she works on her second novel Dust Child, which is about Amerasians, children of American military men who were abandoned during The Vietnam War. Meetings with her New York publisher and editor Betsy Gleick help guide her through the many months of development as well as her desire to retain the Vietnamese-ness of her prose.

The composer and multi-instrumentalist Nitin Sawhney has been commissioned to write a contemporary piece in response to Benjamin Britten’s piece War Requiem, which was premiered 60 years ago. Nitin’s new piece, like Benjamin Britten’s work, will be premiered in Coventry Cathedral in England’s Midlands. It will be performed both inside the cathedral and in the preserved ruins of the old cathedral that was bombed in WWII. The new work, called Ghosts in the Ruins, will be a response to Britten’s War Requiem but with a 21st century twist, concentrating on the plight of refugees and migrants. In the Studio follows Nitin as he works with professional musicians, poets and community choirs to create this site-specific work of art. Known for studio albums including the acclaimed Beyond Skin, Nitin's career has seen him collaborate with major international artists including Paul McCartney, Sting, Mira Nair, Anoushka Shankar, Norah Jones and Herbie Hancock, as well as working with Nelson Mandela. His film and TV music includes Netflix's Mowgli and the BBC’s epic Human Planet series. In 2017, he received the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement Award.