Suite (212)

Often called “Europe’s last dictator”, Aleksandr Lukashenko has been President of Belarus since 1994, frequently holding dubious elections and referenda to give his regime the veneer of democracy. Protests after the most recent contest in August, in which writers and artists were prominent, brought international attention back to Lukashenko’s governance, but the Belarus Free Theatre have been making work at home and abroad about oppression and censorship in the country for the last fifteen years. This month on Resonance 104.4fm, Juliet spoke to the Theatre’s co-founder Natalia Kaliada, in exile in London, and Svetlana Sugako, the Theatre’s co-manager in Minsk, about their work, the regime and the recent protests.

Please note: this episode was recorded via Skype, with Svetlana in Belarus, so apologies for the occasional lapses in sound quality. A full list of references for the programme can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and is available to $3 subscribers – our theme music is 'Aus' by Fennesz.

During Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader, much attention was part to the economic vision that the party developed for the United Kingdom, but less to his personal interest in the arts, and how that shaped both Labour’s cultural policy, and their programme as a whole. In this interview, Juliet talks to Jeremy about his interest in the socialist cultures that formed around the 20th century Labour Party and the Popular United government in Chile, the arts policies the party developed under his leadership, the concept of cultural democracy and his determination to unlock the creative potential of the UK’s young people, #Grime4Corbyn and Culture for Labour in the 2017 and 2019 election campaigns, what the reaction to his fondness for James Joyce’s Ulysses says about the British media, how socially engaged artists might react to the 2019 election defeat and the job losses amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, and plenty more.

A full list of references for the programme can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and is available to $3 subscribers.

In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic and shutting down of much of the UK's cultural life, we have decided to bring you a series of interviews with contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and other cultural figures, conducted via Skype (so apologies for the diminished audio quality), about their practices, the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their work.

In the eighteenth of these Sessions, Juliet talks to artist Nada Prlja about her project Subversion to Red, made to represent the Republic of North Macedonia at the Venice Biennale in 2019. They discuss every aspect of Prlja’s multi-disciplinary project: its engagement with socialist ideology and legacies; its response to the Biennale’s ‘interesting times’ theme; the importance of the round table events with Chantal Mouffe and others; the history of North Macedonia, before and after the break-up of Yugoslavia, and the transformation of post-socialist Skopje; and the Subtle Subversion series in which Prlja re-created works by Yugoslav artists, such as Jordan Grabulovski and Borko Lazeski, as an act of solidarity.

A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.

In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic and shutting down of much of the UK's cultural life, we have decided to bring you a series of interviews with contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and other cultural figures, conducted via Skype (so apologies for the diminished audio quality), about their practices, the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their work.

In the seventeenth of these Sessions, Juliet talks to London-based visual artist and teacher Oreet Ashery. Born in Jerusalem in 1966 and educated at Sheffield Hallam University and Central Saint Martins, Oreet Ashery is a transdisciplinary artist who engages with biopolitical fiction, autoethnography, gender materiality and potential communities, making large-scale projects that span moving image, performance, music, writing and activism. Here, Ashery discusses her new text ‘We’ve been preparing for this our whole lives’ in respond to the Covid-19 outbreak; her recent film Dying Under Your Eyes (2019), commissioned by the Wellcome Collection for the Misbehaving Bodies exhibition that combined Ashery’s work with that of British artist Jo Spence (1934-1992); her Jarman Award-winning series Revisiting Genesis (2015-16) and its themes around death, dying and the digital; her Party for Freedom (2013), made in response to the rise of Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, and The World is Flooding (2014), based on a play by Vladimir Mayakovsky; and the implications of the widespread adoption of digital technology during lockdown for the art world and especially the art school.

A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.

In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic and shutting down of much of the UK's cultural life, we have decided to bring you a series of interviews with contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and other cultural figures, conducted via Skype (so apologies for the diminished audio quality), about their practices, the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their work.

In the sixteenth of these Sessions, Juliet talks to Korean-Canadian artist Zadie Xa. Born in 1983 and based in London since studying at the Royal College of Art, Xa works in painting, textiles, film and performance, examining her own identity and her lived experience within the Korean diaspora, using water and marine ecologies as metaphors for exploring the unknown. Juliet spoke to Xa about her recent work responding to the Black Lives Matter protests; how she has experienced the Covid-19 lockdown (including a spike in racist attitudes towards east Asians; her performances at the Venice Biennale and Art Night in 2019; and how her work engages with matrilineal heritage, Korean culture and Oriental imagery in western pop culture.

A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.

In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic and shutting down of much of the UK's cultural life, we have decided to bring you a series of interviews with contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and other cultural figures, conducted via Skype (so apologies for the diminished audio quality), about their practices, the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their work.

In the fifteenth of these Sessions, Juliet talks to artist-filmmaker John Smith. Born in London in 1952, Smith remains best known for The Girl Chewing Gum (1976), but has made more than sixty films in a career spanning nearly half a century, working with 16mm and digital film, and showing his work at the London Film-Makers’ Co-op and numerous galleries and cinemas as well as BBC2, Channel 4 and Vimeo. Here, Smith discusses his experiences canvassing for Labour (with Juliet) in the 2019 General Election campaign; his new film Twice (2020) about the government’s Covid-19 communications; his relationship with television in the 1980s and 1990s; his Hotel Diaries (2001-2007) and the War on Terror; and the two films he made around the EU referendum, Who Are We (2016) and A Song for Europe (2017).

A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.

The Covid-19 crisis has caused unprecedented challenges for the art world. The lockdown has blown a hole in the finances of large metropolitan institutions and smaller provincial galleries alike, with knock-on effects for staff and artists. It is causing arts organisations to rethink their relationships with local communities and with the internet, and to consider how exhibitions and other functions might work in the age of social distancing, with a likely fall in visitors and revenue when they eventually decide to reopen.

Joining Juliet to discuss this are Stefan Kalmár, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and Helen Stalker, CEO and Director of the Turnpike Gallery in Leigh, Lancashire. They talked about the origins of the two institutions in the age of cultural democracy, and how they navigated the challenges of austerity and Brexit; their funding models, and expectations of what might change in the wake of the 2019 General Election; how they handled lockdown, including when and why they closed, how they managed their staff and artists, and how much support they’ve received from the Arts Council and elsewhere; when they might reopen, how they might deal with social distancing, how this might change their practice, and whether any crisis-induced changes might be for the good.

A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.

In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic and shutting down of much of the UK's cultural life, we have decided to bring you a series of interviews with contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and other cultural figures, conducted via Skype (so apologies for the diminished audio quality), about their practices, the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their work.

In the fourteenth of these Sessions, Juliet talks to English conceptual, video and installation artist Jeremy Deller, who was born in London in 1966. They discussed Deller’s documentary Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 (2019), commissioned by Frieze and shown on BBC Four; ideas around collective joy and acid communism, as well as young people’s access to culture and the music heritage industry; his film with Nick Abrahams about Depeche Mode fans; his Battle of Orgreave (2001), which recreated a pivotal confrontation during the miners’ strike of 1984-85, and helped Deller to win the Turner Prize in 2004; Deller’s poster campaigns for the 2017 General Election and in support of immigrants during the Covid-19 crisis; and what the culture and higher education sectors might look like in the wake of the pandemic.

A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.

In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic and shutting down of much of the UK's cultural life, we have decided to bring you a series of interviews with contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and other cultural figures, conducted via Skype (so apologies for the diminished audio quality), about their practices, the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their work.

In the thirteenth of these Sessions, Juliet talks to writer, performer, and activist Mark Thomas. Born in south London in 1963, Thomas has worked on TV and radio, written five books and a New Statesman column, curated two art exhibitions, and written a show for the Royal Opera House. His work combines stand-up comedy, investigative journalism, activism and audience participation, has won numerous awards and led to legal changes and government ministers leaving their jobs. Juliet spoke to Mark about his new podcast, The Things About Us, his next work about the NHS, his work in Northern Ireland and the West Bank, his battles with Coca-Cola and Nestlé, how Bertolt Brecht and the Fluxus movement influenced his practice, his TV series The Mark Thomas Product (1996-2002) and how his relationship with Channel 4 changed amidst the start of the War on Terror.

Cover image by Tracey Moberley.

A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.

In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic and shutting down of much of the UK's cultural life, we have decided to bring you a series of interviews with contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and other cultural figures, conducted via Skype (so apologies for the diminished audio quality), about their practices, the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their work.

In the twelfth of these Sessions, Juliet talks to artist and filmmaker Deimantas Narkevičius about how the Covid-19 crisis has played out in his native Lithuania, its effect on his teaching work and artistic practice, his forthcoming feature film on stereoscopic photography and his previous works dealing with Soviet monuments and cultural memory. Then they discussed several of Narkevičius’ films in detail: The Role of a Lifetime (2003), made with English filmmaker Peter Watkins; Once in the XX Century (2004); Revisiting Solaris (2007), in which Narkevičius filmed the final chapter of Stanisław Lem’s science fiction novel, which was left out of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 adaptation; and Restricted Sensation (2011), dealing with the treatment of gay men in the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.