Holding Up The Ladder – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to a special live episode of Holding up the Ladder in collaboration with The Royal College of Art. feat. Gülce Tulçalı and Phoebe Davies.

As part of the Royal College of Art (RCA) MA graduate students', 'Curating Contemporary Art Exhibition' and their curatorial show, Feed Back, I was invited to lead a discussion exploring remediating legacies, curatorial repair and the role of artistic practice in defining and potentially shaping new legacies. 

Our conversation took place in the Hanger space at the RCA, an open concrete and brick exhibition space with numerous MA students assembling their curatorial shows. So during our conversation expect to hear the hive like activity of a space in preparation.

The curatorial team responsible for Feed Back were: Apoorva Subbanna, Yi Fan, Serena Gao, Francesca Inciong, Stephanie Rubio, Arina Baburskova and Indy Calland

In conversation were artists: Gülce Tulçalı & Phoebe Davies

We talk about dystopian realities, about the body, about making, about the artist’s role responding to the world around us. We talk about tenant farming and about collectivity and the commons.

Gülce Tulçalı Bio

Phoebe Davies Bio

Links

Now, The Invisible Committee

Octavia's Brood

Vandana Shiva, Reclaiming The Commons

Slade Farm Organics & Podcast

Title: It's Your Job to Make the Work - A Holding Up The Ladder production in collaboration with RCA feat. Gülce Tulçalı and Phoebe Davies

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I can’t think of a better way to end season 4 and the never before heard conversations from my archive, than my conversation between friends, Zadie Smith and Devonté Hynes. I’d been badgering Zadie for a while to let me interview her and when she agreed, the day before our conversation was scheduled, she emailed to ask if she could bring her friend Dev? I of course said yes, scrambled to find another microphone and when we had a last minute cancellation of the recording venue, we had to do it at my house. And the room with the best soundproofing, my bedroom!

We talk about how we’re all storytellers; about music; about the power of live music; about the myth of the 10,000 hours; about Prince; about whether we should define ourselves as 'artists'; about authenticity and consciousness; about knowing and unknowing and about being students forever. I’ve produced almost 60 podcast episodes and this is one of my favourites. Because, for me, there is nothing more fulfilling than sitting around with creative people talking about music and making and process - it’s why this podcast exists. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Guests: Zadie Smith & Devonté Hynes

Title: I would never call myself an artist

Music: Lil Nas X, Industry Baby; Arctic Monkeys, There'd Better Be a Mirrorball; Maggie Rogers, That's Where I Am; Knucks, Alpha House

Links

Devonté Hynes IG and Website

Zadie Smith Website

Zadie interview on latest book, The Fraud - BBC Sounds, This Cultural Life

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In today's episode of I've been thinking about, I explore the idea of sacred spaces. Drawing from the famous Virginia Woolf lecture, 'A Room of One's Own'. She wrote, ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’. Although Woolf was referring to the condition of women in the 1900s, their invisibility, the misrepresentation of women in fiction and their desire for freedom and self-determination. Nonetheless, it’s something that people refer to often as a space that belongs to the artist, a dedicated, private, personal, specific space.

I talk about my space and I ask some of my artist friends to share their spaces. But why the word 'sacred?' Creation is a generative act. Where ideas are 'birthed' into the world - I unpack this idea further and its connection to sacredness.

Holding up the Ladder links:

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Who is art for? And how are we to engage with it? Should art be in museums or outside in parks, town squares or on the side of buildings? Is art the province of an elite few, the private collector, with a rarefied language that excludes? And why do artists make art, is it for ourselves, do we exist because there’s an audience, is it because of our ego? My guest today thinks so.

eL Seed is a contemporary artist whose practice bridges painting and sculpture, developing a unique visual language inspired by the tradition of calligraphy and the energy of urban art. He uses art to explore ideas around identity, cultural heritage, creating connection and inspiring ideas of unity. About how he engages with the communities where his art is placed. Whether it be the Coptic community of Zaraeeb in Cairo or a rural community in Nepal. For eL Seed art is an amplifier, it’s about humanity and that really comes through in our discussion.

I remember listening to an interview with British sculptor Anthony Gormley, perhaps best known for his life size and life-like cast iron figures of men, he said that art belongs in the world, that ‘art is about life and it needs to be in life.’ That it can change the way we behave, think and feel. That’s exactly how I would describe eL Seed’s work.

Guest: eL Seed

Title: ‘Artists exist because there is an audience’

Music: Eminem Stan, Booba, Fairuz, Umm Kultum

Links

Website - https://elseed-art.com/

IG - https://www.instagram.com/elseed/

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@elseedart

Cairo project - https://youtu.be/g9M3HIjHuq0?si=0tfE03TxY5nxvJaE

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In this week's episode of IBTA I'm talking about the music that made me. About the seminal musical moments that shaped not just how I write music but who I am.

Holding up the Ladder links:

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In today's episode of never before heard conversations from my archive, I speak with gallerist and co-founder of Addis Fine Art, Rakeb Sile.

Addis Fine Art specialises in modern and contemporary art from the Horn of Africa and its diasporas. Along with co-founder Mesai Haileleul, Rakeb started the gallery to connect Ethiopian artists to the world and to spotlight underrepresented talent from the area.

We talk about finding your way. About how there are so few African gallerists who are from the same place as the artists they represent. As Rakeb says, ‘we have to do the work to dismantle that’.

One of things that struck me the most interviewing Rakeb is that our lives aren’t linear. It’s OK to pivot, to course correct, to start again. I’ve interviewed a number of people over the 4 seasons of this podcast and Rakeb is the first to say that she’s learnt more from her failures than her successes. 

Guest: Rakeb Sile

Title: How much of Africa do people really want to know?

Music: Mereba, The Jungle is the Only Way Out

Links: Addis Fine Art Website & IG ; Rakeb Sile IG

Artists mentioned:

• Amel Bashier
• Engdaye Lemma
• Selome Muleta
• Merikokeb Berhanu

Holding up the Ladder links:

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Today's IBTA is about making room for delight. Recognising that allowing space for pleasure and delight is an essential component to our practice.

I also share a list of the things that bring me delight. From riding my bicycle, to dancing in the kitchen, to reading poetry out loud and my love of singer Michael Bolton!

References

Toni Morrison, The Nation - No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear

Links

Website: https://www.holdinguptheladder.com/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/holdinguptheladder/

Israel-Palestine project: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/holding-up-the-ladder-podcast-israel-palestine

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In today's episode of never before heard conversations from my archive, I speak with portrait painter Christian Allison. Christian hails from Nigeria, a self-taught artist who left a career in engineering to pursue art full time.

We talk about his commitment to learning, to his love of painting elderly people, how he manages to relay so much emotion through his subjects, especially the eyes. How he enjoys the solitary nature of his work, his harshest critic being his girlfriend. And we of course talk about music.

One of the things that struck me the most about our conversation and why I love interviewing people from around the world, was how Christian talks about his practice. With none of the self-deprecation associated with British culture, Christian loves his work and states it as fact, without any guile or artifice.

Guest: Christian Allison

Title: There’s something unique about the eyes that has to come alive

Music: Dunsin Oyekan and Nathaniel Bassey

Links

Christian's Website

Christian's IG

Holding up the Ladder links

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In this week's IBTA I talk about dreaming, pondering...day-dreaming. Why taking time out to dream is a necessary part of our work.

That art and Its utility isn’t measured by its function. Its utility simply is. It is because you are and you are the maker of it.

Links

Website: https://www.holdinguptheladder.com/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/holdinguptheladder/

Israel-Palestine project: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/holding-up-the-ladder-podcast-israel-palestine

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Welcome back! I’m so pleased to start this series of never before heard conversations from my archive with a dear friend of mine - photographer, artist and co-founder of menswear brand Adret, Adam Rogers.

Along with his co-founder Seto Adiputra, Adret is discreetly tucked away between the high fashion luxury brands of London’s New Bond Street and the bespoke tailors of Saville Row. Their tagline - ‘Smartly Tailored for Smart Relaxing.’

We talk about patience, about finding your way, about imposter syndrome, about being uncompromising. About independence and the musical Singing in the Rain. And how a young man from a family of musicians, with a love for BMX bikes, who studied art and design, ended up with his own menswear brand. And of course we talk about music.

Guest: Adam Rogers

Title: It was the constant idea of independence

Music: Clifford St playlist Matthew Halsall, Johnny Hartmann

Links: Adret on IG

Other Links:

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