The Wellcome Collection Podcast

In the final episode of ‘The Root of the Matter’, JC takes us to the least human habitat of all – the wasteland. It’s a space which often fills us with a sense of foreboding and yet, these places teach us some of the most profound lessons about the plant world and our relationship to it:

Author of Islands of Abandonment: Life in the post-human landscape, Cal Flyn, shows us how wastelands can demonstrate nature’s resilience in the most hostile of situations.

Artist and writer James Bridle explains how  plants force us to fundamentally rethink our ideas about intelligence beyond the human. 

And Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota, and founder of First Voices Radio, talks to us about the need to fundamentally change our language if we are to de-centre the human and heal our relationship with the earth. 

Presented by JC Niala

Lead Produced by Alannah Chance

Produced by Mae-Li Evans

Music and sound design by Alice Boyd

Artwork by Faye Heller

The Root of the Matter is a Reduced Listening production for Wellcome Collection.

You can find the full transcript for this episode, and much more, on the Wellcome Collection website: The Root of the Matter | Wellcome Collection

What does the word ‘wetland’ mean to you? Many of us don’t encounter them at all, and at best we might think of a muddy, boggy marshland. But these landscapes, and the plants that thrive in them, are crucial for ecological health, biodiversity, and capturing carbon. In this episode, JC and her contributors invite you to see these misunderstood spaces in a new light.

Ecologist and writer Mordecai Ogada talks about the cultural and ecological significance of Nam Lolwe (also known as Lake Victoria) to the Luo peoples who live on its shores.

Diana Umpierre, of the USA's Sierra Club, explains the impact that human interventions have had on the Everglades in Florida, and the indigenous communities that call it home. 

From the other side of the Pacific, Professor Dan Friess shares how mangrove swamps are crucial to both human and environmental health, and why they have been misunderstood in the past.

Finally, we hear from the Wilder Landscapes advisor for Sussex Wildlife Trust, Fran Southgate, about how we need to pay more attention to our own wetlands in the UK.

Presented by JC Niala

Lead Produced by Alannah Chance

Produced by Mae-Li Evans

Music and sound design by Alice Boyd

Artwork by Faye Heller

The Root of the Matter is a Reduced Listening production for Wellcome Collection. 

You can find the full transcript for this episode, and much more, on the Wellcome Collection website: The Root of the Matter | Wellcome Collection

We think of forests and woodlands as wild spaces, or areas where we can lose ourselves in nature, and yet they also provide us with a wealth of resources such as food, building materials, or medicines. But they are also globally under threat of destruction…

In this episode, JC delves into the contradictions in our relationship with woodlands, and explores different ways we can think about them, if we are to use and protect them more wisely.

Joseca, a Yanomami artist from the Amazon, and anthropologist and interpreter Anna Maria Machado, share their understanding of the forest and the threats it is currently facing.

Forestry expert Rebecca Latchford, talks to us about how our models of forest conservation and usage fundamentally needs to change if they are still going to exist for future generations.

And Michael Pollan, author of ‘This is your mind on plants’, talks about the mind altering properties and potential benefits of psychoactive fungi which grow in the forests.

Presented by JC Niala

Lead Produced by Alannah Chance

Produced by Mae-Li Evans

Music and sound design by Alice Boyd

Artwork by Faye Heller

The Root of the Matter is a Reduced Listening production for Wellcome Collection.

You can find the full transcript for this episode, and much more, on the Wellcome Collection website: The Root of the Matter | Wellcome Collection

Fruit and veg are a clear link to our relationship to the plant world. Yet many of us have little understanding of the farming industry and the impacts it has on our planet, in bringing crops to our plates.In this episode, JC  untangles the knots of these complex global food systems - and focuses on a grain that is central to many of our diets, wheat.

Professor of Archeological Science, Martin Jones,  shares how our early ancestors began to cultivate crops, and why crops may have begun to cultivate us too. Author and environmental activist George Monbiot sheds light on the impacts and fragility of the modern farming industry, its implications for our global food networks, and the changes that need to happen to make it more sustainable.We meet Iain Tolhurst, a farmer in Oxfordshire whose organic agricultural methods may provide a potential solution for how we might better manage our farmland.

Presented by JC Niala

Lead Produced by Alannah Chance

Produced by Mae-Li Evans

Music and sound design by Alice Boyd

Artwork by Faye Heller

The Root of the Matter is a Reduced Listening production for Wellcome Collection.

You can find the full transcript for this episode, and much more, on the Wellcome Collection website: The Root of the Matter | Wellcome Collection

Gardens are hugely personal, they are an extension of how we see ourselves and how we are in the world. They can also be a strong reminder of what is excluded as much as what is included. In this episode JC asks, what does the Garden reveal about the way we relate to the natural world and to each other?

Writer and grower Claire Ratinon explores colonial legacies in the garden, through our use of language and readiness to embrace and celebrate some plants, whilst excluding others.

We visit the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, where artist and urban farmer, Michael Smythe showcases the uses of common so-called weeds like ribwort plantain and yarrow in locally produced remedies. Wilma Bol, a social prescriber at a local GP surgery, highlights the relationship between this urban nature reserve and the local community, when it comes to communal health.

The gardening activist, Tayshan Hayden-Smith, reflects on the image of horticulture today, and shares his introduction into guerilla gardening, in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Presented by JC Niala

Produced by Alannah Chance and Mae-Li Evans

Music and sound design by Alice Boyd

Artwork by Faye Heller

The Root of the Matter is a Reduced Listening production for Wellcome Collection.

You can find the transcript for this episode, and more, on the Wellcome Collection website using this link:

https://wellcomecollection.org/series/YsQLZxEAACAAWQ4J

In Wellcome Collection’s new series, ‘The Root of the Matter’, we join JC Niala on a journey to understand how plants can provide a lens on human health, history and belonging.

In the final episode of our podcast, Bidisha takes us on a journey through the highest of highs, from nightclubbing and the ecstasies of religion and drugs, to mania.

Artist Harold Offeh shares his personal take on the connections between movement, music and bodies.  

Annie Macmanus (‘DJ Annie Mac’) speaks about the power of nightclubbing, how ecstasy and dance music go hand in hand and how she has managed to maintain her sense of euphoria and delight over the last couple of years. 

From taking MDMA in the 80s to the work of a religious professional, the vicar, musician and radio presenter Richard Coles reflects on his adventures with both chemical and religious ecstasy.

Philosopher Jules Evans and drug science expert David Nutt talk about how people have sought to lose control throughout history, and how psychedelics are being trialled to relieve hard-to-treat cases of depression.

Finally, Bidisha asks, can you have too much of a good thing? Psychologist and writer Kay Redfield Jamison talks about her patients’—and her own—experiences of mania as part of bipolar disorder.

Presented by Bidisha Produced by Debbie Kilbride Sound design by Micky Curling Music by Sola Researched by Priya Jay Executive producer Emily Wiles

Bidisha explores joy, from the psychology of our earliest laughs to collective and solitary pleasures like comedy, food and performance. 

Hear historian of emotions Thomas Dixon describe and define joy, before listening to comedian Daliso Chaponda and developmental psychologist Caspar Addyman talk with Bidisha. They remind us to let our inner jester and inner laughing baby come out and play.

Musician Sola shares her track ‘All Mine’ and talks about the pleasures of making music. Whilst enjoying ice cream, performance artist Travis Alabanza speaks with Bidisha about identity and defiance and the sheer delight they experience when they can be themselves on and off stage.

How can joy be a collective experience? Bidisha finds out through speaking with Kemi Akinola, the founder of Be Enriched, a community kitchen in South London bringing people together over food and creating a place of comfort and joy for 4000 diners a year.

Presented by Bidisha Produced by Debbie Kilbride Sound design by Micky Curling Music by Sola Executive producer Emily Wiles

When was the last time you felt utterly tranquil?

Moya Lothian-McLean searches for an oasis of calm, taking Wellcome Collection’s ‘Tranquillity’ exhibition as a point of inspiration.   

She visits St Bartholomew’s Hospital to experience the installation ‘Regarding Forests’ by Chrystel Lebas. Hear tips from staff and visitors as they share how they find a moment of peace in the middle of a bustling hospital.

Moya speaks with three young people from RawMinds, Fawaz Sajid, Malika Sandover and Tahmina Sayfi and they talk about whether phones can ever help us to find calm in our busy, modern lives.

Brain injury survivor and gardener Keith Emmanuel and environmental psychologist Dr Eleanor Ratcliffe talk with Moya about the importance of being in nature for our health and wellbeing. They meet in the garden at Homerton Hospital Mothers and Babies Ward where Keith volunteers.

Even if you can’t escape to a green oasis, you have the right to rest wherever you are. Artist Rhiannon Armstrong has created a meditation to help you do just that. The meditation is part of a larger work called Public Selfcare System, shaped by Rhiannon’s lived experience as a disabled artist with chronic debilitating conditions that mean she has become an expert at resting in public.

Presented by Moya Lothian-McLean

Produced by Debbie Kilbride 

Sound design by Micky Curling 

Music by Sola 

Executive producer Emily Wiles

Meditation by Rhiannon Armstrong

@mlothianmclean @HeadwayELondon @el_ratcliffe @armstrongtactic

Hello Happiness is the first series of The Wellcome Collection Podcast. In this episode, Bidisha chats to her guests about their personal experiences of resolve, and considers its complicated relationship to happiness.

Psychotherapist Susie Orbach and broadcaster Jeff Brazier discuss the power and limitations of resolve in managing grief and mental health. 

Hear about the hurdles faced by champion athlete Yasmin Miller and how she works with coach Leah Dunthorne to overcome them. 

Artist and writer Scottee reads his specially commissioned text asking whether resolve is all it’s cut out to be. 

Storytellers and activists Elif Shafak and Hassan Akkad talk about individual and collective responsibility in a world of conflict and injustice. Hassan recounts his journey from Syria to a Covid ward in a London hospital, while Elif reflects on the power of stories and the positives of pessimism. 

This episode contains references to torture, sexual assault and suicidal thoughts. 

Presented by Bidisha  Produced by Debbie Kilbride   Sound design by Micky Curling   Music by Sola