Dream Space – Details, episodes & analysis

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Dream Space

Factory International

Arts

Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/35d. Total Eps: 34

What does art have the power to do, when we allow ourselves to dream? In Dream Space we take listeners on a journey through an imaginary, limitless space. There’s Infinite resources. A blank canvas. The challenge: to create your dream artistic utopia. Our host Gemma Cairney speaks with some of the world’s most exciting artistic minds to find out what they choose, what makes them tick and what brings them joy and inspiration. Together we create a new vision, pushing the boundaries of what is possible and ask what kind of art the world needs now.

factoryinternational.org/dreamspace

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Score global : 69%

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Ai Weiwei on freedom, responsibility and creating art

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 • Duration 38:02

In this special episode of Dream Space, renowned artist and activist Ai Weiwei dreams of a world built on fairness and justice.

Guided by guest host and Factory International Chief Executive John McGrath, Ai Weiwei talks about freedom of speech, the responsibility of artists to speak up and how China has changed since his youth.

Flipping the Dream Space script, Ai describes revisiting his nightmare space in Sewing a Button – a 24-hour live re-enactment of his secret detention in China. Ai reflects on the relationship between dreams and reality, recalling his lively, brightly-coloured dreams during detention.

Ai Weiwei is known around the world for his uncompromising artistic vision and political activism. From a childhood in exile to surviving secret detention in China, his remarkable life and career have led him to global prominence. In Button Up!, a major new exhibition at Aviva Studios, Ai turns his critical gaze to the last 200 years of history, power and empire.

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Nish Kumar on floating homes, grassroots venues and futuristic cities

Season 3 · Episode 10

Tuesday, December 30, 2025 • Duration 45:00

For the final episode of Dream Space season three, we leave nature behind for a chaotic, futuristic city from the mind of comedian Nish Kumar.

Guided by host Gemma Cairney, Nish reflects on the energies of the world’s great cities from his home of London to Mumbai to Melbourne. Enter a Dream Space where Manhattan skyscrapers meet Parisian boulevards in a series of contrasting neighbourhoods. Communities live alongside one another in cheap, floating housing with 100% renewable energy and flying wind turbines.

Covering everything from the importance of grassroots venues to the dangers of AI, Nish asks us to imagine a more optimistic version of our present cities.

Nish Kumar is a comedian, broadcaster and podcast host known for his social and political commentary. He hosts Pod Save the UK with journalist Coco Khan and has toured his stand-up show Nish Don’t Kill My Vibe around the world including at Aviva Studios.

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Angélique Kidjo on joy as resistance, music and staying rooted

Season 3 · Episode 9

Tuesday, December 16, 2025 • Duration 38:03

Angelique Kidjo’s Dream Space isn’t a space that you enter as such, but a mindset that you carry with you day to day. The five-times Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and activist delivers a beautiful metaphor to live by in this joyous exchange with host Gemma Cairney.

Riffing on the oral traditions of Benin where she was born, for her Dream Space Angelique invites listeners to envision themselves as a tree – the roots our value systems, the trunk our self and the branches our choices. Reflecting on how nature works in cycles – how a tree loses its leaves annually in order to renew – Angelique contrasts this with our modern world where we’re so accustomed to getting everything we want immediately and running ourselves off our feet year-round.

The lifelong campaigner for women’s rights, healthcare and climate change imparts a wealth of wisdom throughout the conversation – from nature’s nurturing powers and not holding grudges to remembering humour and humility when times are tough (something she notes her friend and mentor Nelson Mandela did).

With seventeen albums under her belt that exude elation, it’s no surprise that in Angelique’s Dream Space she invites us to live in the spirit of joy.

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Mary Anne Hobbs on punk spirit, pirate radio and the next wave of youth culture

Season 3 · Episode 8

Tuesday, December 2, 2025 • Duration 38:12

From running away to London at eighteen and living on a bus with a band, to forcing the door open to a career in the music industry, Mary Anne Hobbs’ path hasn’t always been the conventional one.

The DJ, curator, music journalist and radio presenter reflects on her experiences of growing up in a small Northern town, cutting her teeth in pirate radio, and how her punk, do-it-yourself spirit has shaped her life, career and point of view.

Drawing on these life experiences, in Mary Anne Hobbs’ Dream Space, young artists are given the financial support, time and care to develop their ideas, learn from the older generation and flourish. Inspired by the DIY attitude of pirate radio, her Dream Space invites young people from across the UK to hack and takeover all social media, TV and radio channels and broadcast ‘The Culture Forecast’ every night – forcing the rest of the country to pay attention to the amazing art they’re making.

Guided expertly by host Gemma Cairney who also touches on her non-linear path into broadcasting and the arts, this Dream Space is all about giving the next generation a foot in the door and a shot to shape the culture.

Mary Anne Hobbs is a DJ, curator, music journalist and broadcaster. In 2025, she premiered WHAT DO YOU WANT? at Manchester International Festival – an electrifying fusion of live DJing, sound design, violins, viola and live electronics, created in collaboration with Anna Phoebe.

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Terence Lewis on darkness, stillness and listening to the body

Season 3 · Episode 7

Tuesday, November 18, 2025 • Duration 40:51

In this episode of Dream Space, Terence Lewis – India’s leading contemporary dance choreographer – asks us to be still for a moment.

Guided by host Gemma Cairney, Terence imagines a dark space where sound is the only guide. He talks about connecting with our bodies through movement, thinking, listening and stillness – taking us on a journey from dance techniques to Indian philosophy.

Terence Lewis is a multi-award-winning Indian dance, singer and choreographer – best known for judging the reality dance show Dance India Dance. He is the Artistic Director and Choreographer of Terence Lewis Dance Company in Mumbai – one of two dance companies behind Keith Khan’s The Accountants, which premiered at Aviva Studios in May 2024.

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Juliet Ellis on meditation, serendipity and quieting the mind

Season 3 · Episode 6

Tuesday, November 4, 2025 • Duration 32:52

Artist and filmmaker Juliet Ellis takes us on a journey through her meditative practice as a multidisciplinary artist in this absorbing episode of Dream Space.

Juliet’s Dream Space reflects on serendipity – how she happened upon meditation by chance – and encourages creativity in all forms. Grounded in the power of meditation, everyone is welcome into this Dream Space. Tranquil, deep and contemplative, Juliet even guides host Gemma Cairney and listeners through an exercise to quiet the mind.

Juliet Ellis is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, theatre maker and filmmaker. She released her first feature film in 2021, Ruby, which won Best Drama at Berlin Independent Film Festival and the Fellini Award at Austin Arthouse Film Festival. In 2025, Juliet premiered the film and installation work A Symphony of Flesh and Bones at Manchester International Festival to critical acclaim.

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Nubya Garcia on creative abundance, improvisation and the freedom of music

Season 3 · Episode 5

Tuesday, October 21, 2025 • Duration 39:58

In this episode of Dream Space podcast, jazz saxophonist, composer and musician Nubya Garcia brings the principles of improvisation to her dreams.

Guided by host Gemma Cairney, Nubya imagines a playful, freeing space where music is a universal language. Reflecting on learning to improvise as a teenager, she asks us to let go and respond to the creative energies of the space. Try pottery making, painting, singing or just moving!

Nubya Garcia is a multi-award-winning jazz musician based in London. In 2021, her debut album Source was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Last year, she released her second solo album Odyssey to rave reviews.

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Amrou Al-Kadhi on cosmic raves, queer freedom and losing control

Season 3 · Episode 4

Tuesday, October 7, 2025 • Duration 26:26

Can a lack of control be freeing? In this episode of Dream Space, British-Iraqi writer, drag performer and filmmaker Amrou Al-Kadhi takes us on a journey through the cosmos where we become part of the universe.

Guided by host Gemma Cairney, Amrou imagines a euphoric rave inside a blanket of cosmic dust. There is no sense of time or urgency. Reflecting on queerness in his work, Amrou describes a space where everyone just is – people scream, cry and laugh like children without being judged.

Amrou Al-Kadhi's work focuses on queer identity, politics and storytelling. Their debut book Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from Shame to Pride and Everything In Between won the Polari First Book Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award. Their debut feature film Layla – a coming-of-age story set in London, about an Arab drag queen’s first love – premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2024.

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Lotte Wubben-Moy on football, freedom and life without hierarchy

Season 3 · Episode 3

Tuesday, September 23, 2025 • Duration 30:44

Raised in an East London home alive with creativity – a fashion designer mum and a furniture maker dad – Arsenal defender and Lioness Lotte Wubben-Moy has always felt the power of imagination. Yet as a professional footballer, the questions she’s asked are often focus on her routine: “What do you eat?” and “How do you train?”

In Dream Space, Lotte takes up the invitation to wander, dream and imagine something beyond the rigidity of sport. The result is a place without hierarchy, where the collective matters more than the individual. Rooted in her passion for grassroots football, her dream is to lift others up, creating a game – and a world – where freedom and community sit at the centre.

Guided by host Gemma Cairney, Lotte reflects on creativity, belonging and possibility. Her dream space isn’t just for footballers (though Ian Wright and her Arsenal teammates are invited – alongside the artist Olafur Eliasson) it’s for everyone who believes in the joy of building something bigger, together.

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Max Porter on forests, empathy and art as activism

Season 3 · Episode 2

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 • Duration 37:15

Forest bathing. Climbing trees. Falling in love. Step inside writer Max Porter’s dream space where you find a deep connection to the living world and an incredible sense of peace.

Guided by host Gemma Cairney, Max Porter imagines a psychedelic forest where visitors gain a superpower that reveals the complex life cycle of each living thing – from the trees to fellow human beings.

Reflecting on the importance of freedom and activism in his work, Max Porter talks animism, empathy and pacifism as well as the radical potential of widening our roles as caregivers in our divided times.

Max Porter is an award-winning writer, who works across fiction, film and theatre. He rose to prominence for his outstanding debut Grief is a Thing with Feathers (2015). For MIF21, Max Porter worked with director Aoife McArdle on the film All of This Unreal Time, starring Cillian Murphy with music from Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner (of The National) and Jon Hopkins.

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Dream Space – Details, episodes & analysis

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Dream Space – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

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