Hospital Rooms has been bringing world-class contemporary art into NHS mental healthcare units since 2016. Today, we focus on their most ambitious work to date at Hellesdon Hospital, part of the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. This project embodies both successes and challenges – from the triumph of commissioning fifteen incredible artists to create site-specific works, to the complex realities of working within a healthcare setting that has faced its own struggles in recent years. Joining me are three remarkable individuals who have been integral to the transformation of the Hellesdon spaces: Ken Nwadiogbu, a multidisciplinary artist from Lagos whose journey from civil engineering to fine art has led him to this transformative project, alongside the artist Sarah Dwyer who places drawing at the heart of her practice. We are also joined by Dr. Sophie Bagge, the Lived Experience Lead at the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, who brings invaluable perspective as someone with personal and professional insights. Throughout this episode, you'll hear a sound composition by Mark Jennings titled Wards Extended, 2025 - created from recordings made in two psychiatric facilities – one abandoned and awaiting demolition, the other newly built and preparing to open.

Shape, Shift, an exhibition of artworks from this project opens at The Fitzrovia Chapel in London, from March 13-25, 2025.

This episode was supported by Hospital Rooms.

Executive Produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Shade Podcast Instagram

Music King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Tess Davidson

Podcast design Joel Antoine-Wilkinson

Bi-monthly art magazine Shade Art Review

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of conversations with art educators expand on the ideas presented by Visualise: The Runnymede Trust and Freelands Foundation 2024 report on Race & Inclusion in Secondary School Art Education. In this episode 'Visualise the Future' we are joined by Carey Robinson, Deputy Director, Learning and Public Programmes at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. She has formerly held strategic, curatorial, and creative producer roles at leading cultural institutions including Tate, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the South London Gallery, and The Courtauld. Carey and I reflect and expand on the reports recommendations for the future and imagine a new direction for art education in the U.K.

Carey's referenced the following resources in our conversation:

Anti-Racism Framework for Initial Teacher Training/Education

https://indd.adobe.com/view/ffcc4fdd-e948-41fc-bb21-fca9e82b6b91

Centre for Creative Explorations (Dr Clare Stanhope)

https://centreforcreativeexplorations.weebly.com/

Dr Claire Stewart-Hall (constructions of race in education)

https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/staff/associate-staff/claire-stewart-hall/

Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality (CRED)

https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/research/centre-for-race-education-and-decoloniality/

My Primary School is at the Museum

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/resources/reports/161107-primary-at-museum-report-stage-7-visual-interactive.pdf

https://paradigmproject.co.uk/

Read the report Freelands Foundation Visualise report here.

Executive producer and host Lou Mensah

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Music King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Tess Davidson

Editorial support Dale Berning Sawa

Podcast design Joel Antoine-Wilkinson

Shade Art Review

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of conversations with art educators, practitioners and makers expands on the ideas presented by Visualise: The Runnymede Trust and Freelands Foundation 2024 report on Race & Inclusion in Secondary School Art Education. In this episode 'The Art of Teaching' we are joined by Shepherd Manyika, an artist and educator based in London. Shepherd graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communications and has since gone on to work and exhibit with Spike Island, Iniva, Camden Arts Centre and Tate. Shepherd joins me today to discuss teaching as an artistic practice. 

Freelands Foundation works to broaden access to art education and the visual arts across the UK. They work with teachers and educators to develop diverse and ambitious approaches to art education. Read the report Visualise report here.

Executive producer and host Lou Mensah

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Music King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Tess Davidson

Podcast design Joel Antoine-Wilkinson

Shade Art Review

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of conversations with art educators, practitioners and makers expands on the ideas presented by Visualise: The Runnymede Trust and Freelands Foundation 2024 report on Race & Inclusion in Secondary School Art Education. In this episode 'Art Outside the Classroom' we are joined by Dr Sadegh Aleahmad, an Iranian-born multi-disciplinary artist, facilitator and lecturer based in London. Sadegh's practice explores dynamics of his diasporic identity by experimenting with mirrors and voice. Today, we discuss Sadegh's art education work beyond the classroom, enabling new ways of thinking, creating and coming together in community.

Freelands Foundation works to broaden access to art education and the visual arts across the UK. They work with teachers and educators to develop diverse and ambitious approaches to art education. Read the report Visualise report here.

Executive producer and host Lou Mensah

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Music King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix Tess Davidson

Editorial support Dale Berning Sawa

Podcast design Joel Antoine-Wilkinson

Shade Art Review

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of conversations with art educators, practitioners and makers expands on the ideas presented by Visualise: The Runnymede Trust and Freelands Foundation 2024 report on Race & Inclusion in Secondary School Art Education. In this episode 'Classroom Portraits' we are joined by Exodus Crooks, a Birmingham-based multi-disciplinary artist and educator who works with installation, film-making and text. Through their practice they explore ideas of self-determination, religion and spirituality at the intersection of education, using their role as a teacher to re-imagine Western pedagogy. Exodus has previously exhibited with Iniva, Ikon Gallery and the National Gallery, among others. Today they’ll be joining me to discuss their experience as both an educator and former student, and how we can transform the art curriculum within the classroom.

Freelands Foundation works to broaden access to art education and the visual arts across the UK. They work with teachers and educators to develop diverse and ambitious approaches to art education. Read the report Visualise report here.

Executive producer and host Lou Mensah

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Music King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Tess Davidson

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Podcast design Joel Antoine-Wilkinson

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This new weekly, five part series of conversations with art educators, practitioners and makers expands on the ideas presented by Visualise: The Runnymede Trust and Freelands Foundation 2024 report on Race & Inclusion in Secondary School Art Education. These conversations aim to support educators in providing a more diverse art curriculum. In today's episode 'Broad canvas' I talk with Henry Ward, an artist, educator and the Director of Freelands Foundation and Shabna Begum, CEO of the Runnymede Trust who give an overview of the UK arts education ecosystem.

Freelands Foundation works to broaden access to art education and the visual arts across the UK. They work with teachers and educators to develop diverse and ambitious approaches to art education. Read the report Visualise report here. Apologies for the disruption to sound quality in this episode.

Executive producer and host Lou Mensah

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Music King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Tess Davidson

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Enjoy our special episode which captures and reflects on a discussion on new approaches to sculpture outdoors which took place at the inaugural London Sculpture Week symposium at London Metropolitan University on 25th September 2024.

The discussion features contributions from the following speakers:

Jo Baxendale, Visual Arts Project Manager Fourth Plinth, Greater London Authority 

Sarah Carrington, Deputy Director, The Line 

Dr Libby Heaney, Artist, Frieze Sculpture 

Stella Ioannou, Artistic Director, Sculpture in the City and Founding Director, Lacuna

Katie Schwab, Artist, The Line 

Vanessa da Silva, Artist, Sculpture in the City 

Dr Jacek Ludwig Scarso, Moderator and Deputy Director, CREATURE

Fatoş Üstek, Independent writer and curator, Frieze Sculpture 

The LSW symposium was developed by The Line in collaboration with CREATURE at London Metropolitan University and supported by Arts Council England and Bloomberg Connects, the official digital partner for London Sculpture Week.

This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app. The app gives access to over 550 free guides of museum, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens, and other art spaces around the world. Bloomberg Connects is the official digital guide for London Sculpture Week and presents free content for Frieze Sculpture, The Line, Sculpture in the City and the Fourth Plinth. Download the app to discover more.

Please support our independent podcast by donating £5 here

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Tess Davidson

Symposium recording by Innerar.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Rodney (b. 1961, West Bromwich; d. 1998, London) worked across sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, and digital media, experimenting with new materials and technologies throughout his life. His work is known for being incisive, acerbic, and evocative in its analysis of the prejudices and injustices surrounding racial identity, Black masculinity, chronic illness, and Britain's colonial past. Rodney was also co-founding member of the BLK Art Group: an association of young Black artists formed in Wolverhampton in 1982.

Visceral Canker is the major survey of the artist’s work at Spike Island, bringing together all of Rodney's surviving works. This includes large-scale oil pastels on X-rays, kinetic and animatronic sculptures, and restaged installations, as well as sketchbooks and rare archive materials, spanning 1982 to 1997. Also on display is Autoicon (1997–2000), an interactive digital artwork initiated by Rodney and finalised by a group of his close friends after he died from sickle cell anaemia in 1998. The exhibition is curated by Robert Leckie, Spike Island’s former Director, and Nicole Yip - the gallery’s new director. Today, I am joined by both Nicole and Robert, to discuss the life and work of Donald Rodney, the ambitions of the exhibition and the complexities involved in interpreting an artist’s work once they are no longer with us. The exhibition will tour at Nottingham Contemporary from 28 September 2024 to 5 January 2025 and at Whitechapel Gallery from 12 February to 18 May 2025.

Please support our independent podcast by donating £5 here

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review Series 11 | 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Mae-Li Evans

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Enjoy our special episode from the exhibition When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting at Kunstmuseum in Basel recorded by Anne Kimunguyi. Many of you know Anne from her Shade Art Review. features.

Our guest is Head of Contemporary Art at Kunstmuseum Basel, Maja Wismer. As part of her role, she specialises in art of the late 20th and early 21st century, having previously held the role of Curatorial Fellow at the Busch Reisinger Museum of the Harvard Art Museums. Based at the Kunstmuseum, her previous work has seen the realisation of the exhibition ‘Kara Walker. A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to be’, as well as projects involving the move of the works of Joseph Beuys from the newly created space – Museum fur Gegenwarsknust, a museum dedicated exclusively to contemporary art in 1980. 

Please help save our independent podcast by donating £5 here

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review Series 11 | 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Mae-Li Evans

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew Krishanu (b.1980, Bradford, UK) paints atmospheric, pared-back compositions including scenes from the artist’s life, particularly his childhood years in Bangladesh growing up with his brother, and their parents—a British Christian missionary and an Indian theologian. In the paintings, seemingly familiar narratives are alluded to but destabilised. The viewer’s own projections are called upon to fulfil the interpretive loop, raising questions about childhood, religion, race, power, and the legacies of empire.

The Bough Breaks is showing at Camden Art Centre until June 23. Krishanu's forthcoming solo exhibition will show at Tanya Leighton L.A., in the autumn.

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review Series 11 | 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast Website

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Edit & Mix by Mae-Li Evans

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the second of our episodes from the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.

I am delighted to welcome back Aindrea Emelife as my guest. Aindrea is a curator and art historian of modern and contemporary art, whose practise specializes in colonial and decolonial African histories and the politics of representation. Aindrea is the curator of Nigeria Imaginary at the Nigeria Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, which sees the country participating in the festival for the second time. The pavilion will show projects made in collaboration with the Museum of West African Art, where Aindrea is also a curator. Today, we will be getting an exciting introduction into this year’s Nigeria Pavilion and

hearing a bit more about the participating artists, their works and the curatorial thinking behind this year’s exhibition.

Enjoy a review, including images of Nigeria Imaginary written by Anne Kimunguyi in today's special edition of Shade Art Review.

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Editing and mixing by Tess Davidson

Editorial support by Anne Kimunguyi

Nigeria Imaginary

Aindrea Emelife

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the first of our episodes from the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.

Today, I am delighted to hand the mic to my dear friend the arts writer Dale Berning Sawa, who met with John Akomfrah at the preview of The British Council commission Listening All Night To The Rain. You'll also hear from me in this episode and Dale shares a reflection on her first Venice experience and conversation with the artist on this special occasion. You can also enjoy Dale's review of Listening All Night To The Rain and images from the exhibition, in Shade Art Review. today.

Listening All Night To The Rain continues artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah’s investigation into themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change with a renewed focus on the act of listening and the sonic. The exhibition, conceived as a single installation with eight interlocking and overlapping multi-screen sound and time-based works, is seen as a manifesto that encourages the idea of listening as activism and positions various progressive theories of acoustemology: how new ways of becoming are rooted in different forms of listening. Encouraging visitors to experience the British Pavilion’s 19th century neoclassical building in a different way, Akomfrah’s commission interprets and transforms the fabric of the space in order to interrogate relics and monuments of colonial histories.

John Akomfrah initially came to prominence in the early 1980s as part of the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC), a collective founded in 1982. An early film by BAFC, titled Handsworth Songs (1986), explored the events around the 1985 riots in Birmingham and London. In recent years, Akomfrah’s work has evolved into ambitious, multi-channel installations presented in galleries and museums worldwide. In 2017, he won the Artes Mundi prize, the UK’s biggest award for international art. He has previously participated in the 58th Venice Viennale with Four Nocturnes, commissioned for the inaugural Ghana Pavilion in 2019, and Vertigo Sea (2015) as part of the 56th International Art Exhibition. The British Council commission Listening All Night To The Rain at the Venice Biennale 2024 runs from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November 2024.

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Editing and mixing by Tess Davidson

Dale Berning Sawa

British Pavilion

Venice Biennale

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Legacy Russell is Executive Director & Chief Curator of the experimental arts institution The Kitchen, one of New York's oldest non-profit spaces. She is writer, curator and author of the critically acclaimed Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. I am delighted to have Legacy join me to talk about Black Meme, which is due to be published on May 7th. Black Meme focuses on the history and production of the ‘Meme’ – tracing through Black visual culture from its first appearance in the early 20th century all the way through to present times. It is a critical dissection of race, class, and gender as performed online and offline and emphasizes the central role that Black contributions have played in the development of digital culture.  

On the ‘Meme’, Legacy says:’ I want to talk about the economy and engine of this and perhaps push further a discussion about how we can hold ourselves accountable to how this material is produced and circulated.”

Black Meme is available to purchase online and in stores from May 7th.

Here is a link to Legacy's talk on The New Bend exhibition, as mentioned in Lou's intro.

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Editing and mixing by Tess Davidson

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ibrahim Mahama is an installation artist who works with textiles, material production and found objects to create large-scale public interventions. He initially garnered widespread attention for his open-air installations made of stitched-together jute sacks that were draped on or over architectural structures, such as libraries, an airport, and a museum, in the cities of Accra and Kumasi, where he is based. His practise involves a collaborative process of sourcing, collecting, reproducing and installing the often-textile based materials he works with. His pieces speak to ideas around historical memories, traditional belief systems, local economies and the democratisation of art. 

Ibrahim’s works have been shown in various group and solo shows, including The Norval Foundation in Cape Town, The White Cube in London and Hong Kong and has been a part of the Ghana Pavilion for 2019 Venice Biennale, among many others. In this episode, Ibrahim and I discuss his new large-scale public commission at the Barbican, the process behind creating this work and his hopes for its reception.

Ibrahim Mahama Purple Hibiscus runs at the Lakeside Terrace at the Barbican from April 10 - 18 August 2024 and is free to the public.

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Editing and mixing by Tess Davidson

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Ohajuru is a London-based art historian who returns to the podcast to discuss the John Blanke project, a large gathering of artists and historians who have come together to re-imagine John Blanke, the black trumpeter to the courts of Henry 7th and Henry 8th and the first person of African descent in British history that we have both a visual and written record of. The participating artists include Keith Piper, Wole Lagunju, Phoebe Boswell, Paul Dash and Larry Achiampong.

David Olusoga Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester says of the project:

"The John Blanke Project redefines historical exploration by merging practical scholarship with innovation and critical imagination. Anchored in social justice, it reveals the overlooked narratives of Black Tudor England, enriching our grasp of diversity and British identity. By blending art and history, it encourages a deeper, empathetic engagement with our shared past, advocating for a more inclusive and equitable understanding of history."

Thanks for listening to this independent podcast. You can support this work by reviewing and sharing the podcast or becoming a Shade Art Review subscriber.

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Editing and mixing by Tess Davidson

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joy Gregory (b. 1959. Bicester, UK). Born in the UK to Jamaican parents, Joy Gregory’s work explores the impact of colonialism on global perceptions of beauty, memory, botany, health and traditional knowledge. As a photographer, Gregory has worked over decades in various media, including video, digital and analogue photography, film installation, Victorian print processes and more recently textiles; exploring photography as technology and as mode of artistic expression. She is interested in understanding how individuals and communities remember and interpret their history, particularly in relation to their connection to the land.

Joy & Lou discuss the themes of process and practice as they have developed throughout the artist’s four decade career. In June, Art on the Underground will unveil a new series of Joy’s artworks at Heathrow Terminal 4 Underground station - envisaging Heathrow as a portal of entry and exit. I spoke with Joy in February, as she embarked on her partnership with Hillingdon-based charity Refugees in Effective and Active Partnership (REAP) facilitating a series of photographic workshops with asylum seekers living in hotels in the Heathrow area, as well as a community group for Afghan women in Hayes and Harlington. These workshops will inform the creation of her artwork for Heathrow Terminal 4, giving space to the stories of newly arrived Londoners, displaced people whose realities are increasingly maligned and misrepresented. The work will offer an indelible trace of the cultures, languages and hopes which coalesce in London.

In the Autumn of 2025, Whitechapel Gallery will stage Joy’s first monographic exhibition, surveying a four-decade practice.

Thanks for listening to this independent podcast. You can support this work by reviewing and sharing the podcast or becoming a Shade Art Review subscriber (follow the link below for details).

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Editing and mixing by Tess Davidson

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This evening, 21 March '24

6 - 8pm GMT: Artist Talk - Tiona Nekkia McClodden at White Cube Bermondsey, London. Tiona will discuss the impetus of her solo exhibition ‘A MERCY | DUMMY’, which spans two discrete bodies of works produced alongside each other. McClodden will explore the impulse to present two bodies of works together for the first time in her career through a choreographed sharing of her collection of archival research, music, video, and texts. Reserve a spot here. MERCY | DUMMY runs until 24 March.

Tiona Nekkia McClodden (b.1981, Blytheville, Arkansas) spent her formative years throughout the American South. Trained as a filmmaker, McClodden worked largely within the punk and club scene in Atlanta before moving to Philadelphia in 2006 and expanding her practice to include painting, sculpture, photography and installation.

Recent solo exhibitions include Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland (2023); Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2023); The Shed, New York (2022); 52 Walker, New York (2022); The Triple Deities, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2021); and Company Gallery, New York (2019). Selected group exhibitions include Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York (2023–24); El Museo del Barrio in New York (2022–23), touring to Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona (2023) and Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida (2023–24); ICA Los Angeles, California (2022); Prospect 5, New Orleans, Louisiana (2021–22); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania (2021); New Museum, New York (2021); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2019); and the Whitney Biennial, New York (2019). Other presentations of her work have been on view at MOCA, Los Angeles, California (2017); MCA Chicago, Illinois (2017); and MoMA PS1, New York (2016). In recent years, McClodden has won prestigious grants and fellowships, including the Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2022), Princeton Arts Fellowship (2021–23); the Bucksbaum Award, Whitney Museum of American Art (2019); Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts (2019); the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2017); and the Pew Fellowship (2016), while running Conceptual Fade, a project gallery and library she founded in 2020 that hosts micro-exhibitions and publications centred on Black art and conceptual practice.

Work by McClodden is in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; MoMA, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; and Rennie Museum, Canada.

Read Shade Art Review 

Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Shade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Editing and mixing by Tess Davidson

Editorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the final episode in my seven part, end of year series! Inspired by the Black radical tradition of the harmony between the lyrical and visual, I am joined by friends to explore the musical influences that inspire their work. We also look to the people, real and imagined, familial and ancestral who guide them.

Cynthia is a costume designer, whose work you will have seen in successful British films, like the recent Rye Lane directed by Raine Allen-Miller. Cynthia's currently showing work at Somerset House in London as part of the exhibition Missing Thread, which charts the shifting landscape of Black British culture and the unique contribution it's made to Britain's design history. Our friendship began in the early 2000s, when we worked together in my capacity as a photographer.

It was Cynthia's generosity of ideas and her unique approach to design that inspired me and makes her one of the most revered costume designers today. Cynthia and I sneaked in a super quick, ten minute conversation whilst she was on set last week. She shares her musical influences and talks about how music is the foundation of her design for all of her characters.

Please share and review this independent Black art show. Thank you!

ENJOY!

Follow us:

Shade Podcast Spotify Playlist (updated daily)

Shade Art Review

Shade Art Review Christmas offer code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Missing Thread Exhibition Somerset House

Cynthia Lawrence John Agent

Cynthia Lawrence John Instagram

This series was produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Mixing by Tess Davidson

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the penultimate episode in this Christmas series of conversations. Inspired by the Black radical tradition of the harmony between the lyrical and visual, I am joined by friends artists to explore the musical influences that inspire their work. We also look to the people, real and imagined, familial and ancestral who guide them.

Rashod Taylor is a Missouri-based photographer whose photographs are a window into the Black American experience. His work uses portraiture to address themes of family, race, culture, and legacy. Rashod is most recognised for his Little Black Boy series, an ongoing project featuring his son, which earned him an Arnold Newman Prize. His work is actively collected by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and has been featured in publications including National Geographic, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Forbes, and many more. His photographs embody a communing of influences from the past, present, and future, he says ”I tell the story of my family history and my story, in my son's story.” Our conversation begins with Rashod telling us about the influence of negro spiritual songs on his work.

ENJOY! Please share and review this independent show. Thank you!

Follow us:

Shade Podcast Spotify Playlist (updated daily)

Shade Art Review

Shade Art Review Christmas offer code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Rashod Taylor Website

Rashod Taylor Instagram

This series was produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Mixing by Tess Davidson

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this seven part, end of year series - new episodes are released each weekday between Dec 13-21. Inspired by the Black radical tradition of the harmony between the lyrical and visual. I am joined by friends (artists, dancers, musicians) to explore the musical influences that inspire their work. We also look to the people, real and imagined, familial and ancestral who guide them.

Tyrone is a concept driven artist whose skills originate from Jazz and Hip-Hop Theatre. Working as a performer across dance and music, his practice has grown to become a mixture of Krump, contemporary dance, visual art & Jazz music. He performs in Julian Knxx's latest exhibition Chorus in Rememory of Flight, currently running at the Barbican. "There's already a musical language that is embedded in the ideas of that work because of the way Julian is working with choirs, and then I can try and translate that into movement. I have a good relationship with Julian and there's a lot of trust. So in some ways, we've established a chorus."

He recently released his debut LP, S!ck - and was called ”one to watch" by Giles Peterson this year. Commissions include a full length theatre work for the Barbican 'An Earnest Life', a duet for Dance Umbrella, Beyond Words & an international Solo work for Hayley Matthews Ensemble. He is a Steve Reid Innovation Award 2019-2020 recipient, and a 2020 Artist in Residence at Clarence Mews Space, 2021 East London Ideas Fund Awardee & 2022 Peter Whittingham Jazz recipient and a 2023 Take Five jazz awardees.

ENJOY! Please share and review this independent show. Thank you!

Follow us:

Shade Podcast Spotify Playlist (updated daily)

Shade Art Review

Shade Art Review Christmas offer code

Shade Podcast Instagram

Tyrone S!ck LP

Tyrone x Julian Knxx at The Barbican

Tyrone Instagram

This series was produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Mixing by Tess Davidson

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.