Making Space

A conversation with the innovation expert, maker, grower, community anchor and adventurer, Dr James Taplin. Recorded back in the late phase of the Covid pandemic over a bottle of whiskey.

Rob Poynton is a creative thinker and author whose life and work straddle numerous different fields. He teaches strategic leadership at the University of Oxford, and acts as a facilitator, consultant and coach to a host of companies and clients. His work is at the intersection of leadership, creativity, innovation and branding. He draws on multiple influences including improvisational theatre, play and the science of complexity. He lives between a remote off-grid home he built himself in the mountains of central Spain, and Oxford, England. In this conversation Carlo and Rob cover all sorts of ground including how Rob was drawn into the world of improv., life at the edges and why intersections are important. They discuss creativity, the advantage of simple rules, and where psychology and philosophy overlap. Rob is an erudite, deep thinker with a pin sharp intellect and a wide sweep of knowledge across multiple fields.

Sadie Morgan is the co-founding director of multi award-winning international architecture and design practice dRMM. She was appointed OBE in the Queen’s 2020 New Year’s Honours List and is a Professor at the University of Westminster. She is the youngest ever President of the Architectural Association, is the Design chair for HS2 and is a Commissioner for the UK Government’s National Infrastructure Commission. She is the founder of the Quality of Life Foundation which aims to put well-being at the heart of all new place-making and at the forefront of the housebuilding agenda. In this conversation Carlo and Sadie discuss her wide-ranging work, her open-mindedness borne of an upbringing in a communal environment, and her tireless support for the recognition of women in all aspects of society. They also discuss her decision to hitch-hike back from Spain in 2010 when Eyjafjallajökull erupted in Iceland, and why she gave the dRMM Stirling Prize winning acceptance speech in 2017, from hastings, in fangs.

Carlo meets Clare Hieatt, co-founder of The Do Lectures and Hiut Denim, during the build up to the 2019 Do Lectures event on her farm in Wales. Clare shares personal insights into her 30 plus year professional life and business partnership with her husband David, writing her book Do Curious, and creating the unique transformative space which facilitates the magic of the "Do" every year.

In this episode Carlo meets Michael Owen, founder of Always Wear Red, an uncompromising menswear brand utilising only the very best materials and makers around the UK. AWR aims to create beautiful products designed and made to last a lifetime. Amongst other things they riff on turning 50 - an occasion that led Michael to start a daily blog - 50odd which has grown into a searingly honest, witty and wise look at life through Michael's glasses. And they end with a very personal exploration of the indelible impression that the film Kes has left on both.

On the eve of the 10th Do Lectures Wales, Carlo discusses the genesis of the event with co-founder David Hieatt. David shares the ideas and inspiration behind the Do Lectures, why and how it came into being, and what he hopes to achieve with it. He also shares rare insights of his life with his wife Clare, and their process in building their much admired brand Howies, and more recently Hiut - a specialist hand-crafted maker of jeans in Cardigan, West Wales.

In this episode Carlo gets to hang out with the extraordinary illustrator Anna Koska in her rural studio. In a sweeping discussion they talk about painting, writing, bee-keeping, rearing pigs, charcuterie, feeding a family on home grown vegetables, and cooking. Anna is quite the polymath - curious, adventurous, unafraid to fail, And her beautiful, humble studio sitting as it does on the edge of woodland, with just birdsong and Billie the lurcher for company, was the perfect space to talk.

Carlo meets acclaimed singer-songwriter Luke Sital-Singh at his studio in Bristol to discuss his journey from teenage music fan to respected professional musician described by no less than Lauren Laverne as ‘unbelievably good’. They discuss Luke’s searingly honest, haunting and mournful songs and the creative process behind writing them and then turning them into records. Sharing a fascination with melancholy Luke and Carlo discuss how that most misunderstood of aesthetic emotions can be a source of great creativity and the part it plays in Luke’s music, but Luke also reveals his fabulously dry sense of humour. Enjoy not just the meandering conversation but also some samples of Luke’s music which he very kindly mixed into the podcast himself!

Music courtesy of Luke Sital-Singh

Intro. music courtesy of Andre Louis: https://soundcloud.com/andre-louis and voice sample courtesy of Thomas George: https://soundcloud.com/blackberrydd

In this episode Carlo talks food, drink, ritual, craftsmanship and hand built boats with the wonderful, soulful Jack Adair Bevan. Jack co-founded The Ethicurean - a multi award winning West Country restaurant straight out of University. He developed an award winning artisan vermouth, The Collector, selling it successfully to the best bars and restaurants in the land. But driven by his innate curiosity Jack gave it up to follow a new found passion - to use his hands to craft classic wooden sailing boats. So with a rare humility Jack shares his story of learning a new trade, the intense kindness of the folk on the West coast of Scotland, and how his love of, and respect for ritual, has given him a wisdom well beyond his years.

In this episode Carlo meets Tim Strange in his beautiful beach hut on England's south coast. Tim is an artist, photographer, educator and, notably, one of less than 1800 people to have swum the English Channel. Tim talks with great clarity about how he came to take on the challenge of the Channel swim - a feat that has been completed by less than half the number of people than have climbed Mount Everest. Tim also talks about studying fine art at Goldsmiths in the shadow of the YBA's, his art practice and how he makes his stunning photography, and his love of teaching.

Intro. music courtesy of Andre Louis: https://soundcloud.com/andre-louis and voice sample courtesy of Thomas George: https://soundcloud.com/blackberrydd