The Documentary Podcast

It's a quarter of a century since Kosovo emerged from a brutal war, one which pitted local ethnic Albanians against Serbs. Twenty-five years on, the government in Pristina is pressing ahead with reforms that could reinforce its separation from Serbia. They include banning the use of Serb dinars and curbing the import of things like Serb medicines. Pristina says the moves are needed to curb illegality and tax-evasion. But they have brought widespread complaints from local Serbs who feel victimised. Is the government justified in claiming there is a rising risk of violence, or are the restrictions themselves making this more likely?

Wangari Mathenge used to be a high-flying corporate lawyer before turning to her first love of art. She likes to express herself through her colourful palette and figurative paintings, exploring her African culture, identity and past. More recently she has turned to immersive installation.

For this In The Studio, arts journalist Anna Bailey follows Wangari as she creates her second immersive experience at the Pippy Houldsworth Gallery. It’s a life-sized replica of her Nairobi studio and this is where she invited 20 female domestic workers to have a day of rest, while also painting large-scale portraits of them for a new series of work which celebrates female domestic workers in Kenya.

Wangari also invites listeners into her Chicago studio, where she is working on the next painting in the series. But as Anna finds out, rest is not only important to the workers but to Wangari herself.

Presenter and producer Anna Bailey

Over the past twenty years, paintings from a private collection of Russian and Ukrainian modern art have been sold to museums and private collectors around the world. Paintings were sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Zaks collection, as it’s known. It was said to include over 200 oil paintings of some of the most treasured Russian and Ukrainian avant-garde artists, including those by El Lissitzky, Exter, Goncharova and Popova, putting it among the largest in the world. This has caught the eye of three art detectives and the BBC’s Grigor Atanesian follows them, along with forensic experts, to discover more about the collection, what’s been happening and if the paintings are real or worthless fakes.

How is disinformation created and spread, and how is it impacting the way journalists work? We'll look at what's going on in Latin America, Russia and Nigeria with the help of three World Service journalists: Luis Fajardo is a senior editor with BBC Monitoring, covering South American media; Olga Robinson, also with Monitoring, is a disinformation analyst specialised in Russian affairs; and Olaronke Alo is part of the Disinformation Unit in Nigeria.

Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)

After months of delays, US politicians agreed a $61bn aid package of military assistance for Ukraine to support their fight with Russia. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said it could save thousands of lives in the war and President Joe Biden said it would make the world safer. In this edition, host Luke Jones hears from Americans who continuously raise support of their own for the Ukraine war effort. Many have family or friends in Ukraine and their fundraising supports everything from vehicles to medical aid to art therapy.

On the southern shores of Vietnam, whales are revered as gods of the oceans. Eliza Lomas visits whale temples and a whale cemetery, hearing about the roots and rituals of the belief. We learn how worshippers’ lives are entwined with the sea, joining a festival where whales are honoured with a ceremonial journey. With lives at sea full of risk, we hear how these sacred creatures ensure fishermen a safe return to land.

Sweden has a global reputation for championing high taxes and social equality, but it has more dollar billionaires, relative to its population size, than almost anywhere else on the planet. Stockholm-based journalist Maddy Savage untangles the rise of the super rich, from the country’s booming tech sector to wealth and taxation policy shifts. She also delves into the deep-rooted cultural norms which can discourage Swedes from celebrating money, and investigates the rise in impact investing, as some of Sweden’s richest business leaders plough their cash into new startups prioritizing social and environmental sustainability. A Podlit AB production.

From deepfakes to the fear of AI taking jobs, to the social media giants making money from abusive content, our technology dominated world is in a crisis – what are the solutions?

AI researcher Kerry McInerney applies a feminist perspective to data, algorithms and intelligent machines. AI-powered tech, and generative AI in particular, pose new challenges for cybersecurity. Kerry proposes a new take on AI, looking at how it can be used on a small scale, acknowledging culture and gender, tailoring the technology for local applications rather than trying to push for global, one size fits all strategies.

And in addressing corporate responsibility for Big Tech, Kerry discusses how tackling harassment online requires an understanding of the social, political and psychological dimensions of harassment, particularly of women in the wider world, as opposed to seeing this as a technical problem.

Dr Kerry McInerney is a research fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge, and the AI Now Institute.

This is the last of four programmes from the Oxford Literary Festival, presented by Nuala McGovern, produced by Julian Siddle.

Recorded in front of an audience at Worcester College Oxford.

For three decades Armenians ruled Karabakh – literally “Black Garden” – an unrecognised statelet inside neighbouring Azerbaijan. Many saw it as the cradle of their civilisation. But as Azerbaijan retook control last autumn, the entire population fled in just a few days. It was a historic catastrophe for Armenia. But the world barely noticed. How is Armenia coping with its loss? Can 100,000 refugees rebuild their lives? And will the cycle of hatred that caused the conflict ever be broken? Grigor Atanesian reports.

Philip K. Dick's novella The Minority Report was famously adapted into a science fiction blockbuster by director Steven Spielberg in 2002. More than 20 years later, it is now being adapted for the stage by writer David Haig and director Max Webster. Mark Burman goes behind the scenes of this bold adaptation, as the clock ticks down to opening night.