the Roberts Institute of Art – Details, episodes & analysis

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the Roberts Institute of Art

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Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/48d. Total Eps: 27

A place to explore, reimagine and exchange ideas about culture through conversations. We invite artists, cultural practitioners and other thinkers to discuss themes connected to the Roberts Institute of Art (previously DRAF) programme and works in the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. Through dialogue, research and personal stories this podcast series dives into those elements that shape contemporary culture and the ways we see the world.

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🇬🇧 Great Britain - visualArts
21/09/2025
#98
🇬🇧 Great Britain - visualArts
20/09/2025
#56
🇬🇧 Great Britain - visualArts
03/02/2025
#51
🇨🇦 Canada - visualArts
15/01/2025
#86
🇨🇦 Canada - visualArts
14/01/2025
#48

Spotify

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http://therobertsinstituteofart.com/
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https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/w6w4b4
16 shares
http://davidrobertsartfoundation.com/
11 shares

https://www.instagram.com/therobertsinstituteofart
16 shares
https://www.instagram.com/draf_art
11 shares

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Score global : 68%

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Close Looking: Osman Yousefzada on Prem Sahib

Season 5 · Episode 6

Monday, November 27, 2023 • Duration 03:07

Osman Yousefzada’s poem, Untitled (for Prem), is written in response to Prem Sahib’s User_01 (2016), a panel of black aluminium covered with drops of resin that look like sweat and moisture, smudged in one part as if by a hand. The work’s eroticism, inspired by the sweaty walls of clubs, is framed by Yousefzada’s evocation of memory, longing and sensuality.

The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023.

The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling.

Read the text and see the artwork here.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

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Close Looking: Marina Warner on Paula Rego

Season 5 · Episode 5

Monday, November 27, 2023 • Duration 16:44

Marina Warner’s Pentimento is written in response to Paula Rego’s drawing in pencil and conte, St Mary of Egypt (2011) and tells the story of the little-known saint from fragments of reports of those who knew and remembered her. Knowing Rego’s love of storytelling and character studies, Warner has written a fictional account of a professor who has discovered Rego’s drawing and has pieced together memories of the saint gathered from a fictional fourth-century palimpsest she is researching from the city of Fustat (old Cairo).

The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023.

Read the text and see the artwork here.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

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Grace Schwindt and Katleen Van Langendonck

Season 4 · Episode 1

Wednesday, November 9, 2022 • Duration 53:26

Grace Schwindt is a German artist working with film, live performance, sculpture, and drawing. As part of Evening of Performances 2018, Grace presented The Boxer. The Boxer proposed the intimate moment of sharing physical and mental wounds as a possibility to create open social relations.

Belgian curator and academic Katleen Van Langendonck joins Grace Schwindt in conversation about Grace's practice and the crossovers between Katleen's current research into performance and the translation of the medium between visual arts and theatre.

The pair discuss the transmission of trauma and the translation of performance within different contexts with reference to Schwindt’s work. They unpick the mechanisms and methodologies used by museums and theatres to understand how each can achieve better working models when it comes to cross-disciplinary performance work.

This special edition of our 'On Togetherness' series is part of Recall: Evening of Performances (2008–2019), a year-long programme of interviews, podcasts and contributions from some of the artists who participated in the twelve editions of the celebrated Evening of Performances. Highlighting the evenings’ extraordinary legacies, we will be exploring what the next wave of contemporary performance can become with the artists who have shaped it so far.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

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Phyllida Barlow on Bethan Huws

Season 2 · Episode 15

Friday, November 19, 2021 • Duration 25:31

We invited Phyllida Barlow, whose work is featured in the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, to choose a piece from the collection as the starting point for a conversation about influences and objects of interest. She chose Bethan Huws’ Untitled, 2002.

Untitled is from Huws' Word Vitrine series and is a text-based work of sculptural form, using standard office word vitrines made from aluminium, glass, rubber and plastic letters. First created in 1999, her Word Vitrines reference Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades, though they alter this concept with the addition of an evocative text.

Barlow discusses that what drew her to Huws' work is the sentience she imbues in her sculptures. She joins Ned McConnell from her London home for a conversation about memory, the ‘performativity’ of sculpture and the difference between someone and something.

British artist Phyllida Barlow takes inspiration from her surroundings to create imposing installations that can be at once menacing and playful. Creating anti-monumental sculptures, she uses inexpensive, low-grade materials such as cardboard, fabric, plywood, polystyrene, scrim and cement. Her constructions are often testing the limits of a space whether through height, mass or volume and balance engage the audience by blocking straddling or precariously balancing in the space.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

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Arike Oke and Pelumi Odubanjo

Season 3 · Episode 14

Monday, October 11, 2021 • Duration 40:39

Arike Oke is currently the Managing Director of the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, which is known as the leading institutional voice on the Windrush Generation and the home of Black British history.

Independent curator, writer and researcher Pelumi Odubanjo joins Arike Oke for a discussion about how their work with archival materials creates spaces to heal, discover new stories and find other ways of living and possibilities for making art.

The pair talk to Lucy Cowling from the Roberts Institute of Art about the importance of knowledge transmission between generations and community building within Black British cultures.

NOTES

At 7 min 51 sec Arike Oke refers to the Jamaican/Scottish nurse Mary Seacole as looking after troops in the Boer War, this should be the Crimean War.

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This episode is part of our ‘On Togetherness’ podcast mini-series, where we invite conversations between artists and practitioners in the cultural field, exploring collaboration and how to be together in all its forms. Find previous conversations between acclaimed photographer Hrair Sarkissian and curator Michaela Crimmin, plus academics Matthew Spellberg and Richard Sommer.

Arike Oke is Managing Director for the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. Arike has worked in cultural heritage for over 15 years, from the seminal Connecting Histories project in Birmingham, to building Wellcome Collection's archive, and co-convening Hull's first Black History Month. She is also a writer of short stories, which you can find on arikewrites.com.

Michaela Crimmin and Hrair Sarkissian

Season 3 · Episode 14

Monday, September 27, 2021 • Duration 33:43

Michaela Crimmin is an independent curator and co-director of the not-for profit agency, Culture+Conflict. For over 15 years she taught on the Royal College of Art’s curating contemporary art MA.

Hrair Sarkissian is a photographer who was brought up in Damascus and who now lives and works in London. His practice explores his own personal memories and histories and the relationship between visibility and invisibility.

In this podcast, our guests discuss Sarkissian's formative years working in his father’s studio in Damascus, the notion of home and identity and the aesthetic and political capacities of photography, especially in relation to trauma and personal and social histories.

This is the second in a new series of talks for the Roberts Institute of Art podcasts, where artists, cultural practitioners and other thinkers are invited to discuss a theme connected to our programmes and contemporary culture.

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We recommend you take a look at Sarkissian’s website where you can look closely at the photographic series discussed: ‘Home Sick’, ‘Unexposed', ‘Sarkissian’s Photo Centre & my father & I', and ‘Last Scene’, for example.

Michaela Crimmin works as an independent curator and is co-director of Culture+Conflict, a not-for-profit agency profiling and supporting artists whose work relates to international conflict. For over 15 years she taught on the Royal College of Art’s curating contemporary art MA, and most recently led a major EU-funded research programme that included a residency with Delfina Foundation by Noor Abuarafeh, an artist from Palestine; a forthcoming film commission that opens at Gasworks in October this year by Adam Khalil & Bayley Sweitzer; and a symposium with The Showroom and Tate co-programmed with Elvira Dyangani Oseasking to what extent can art affect change when addressing issues of migration, displacement, and access.

Matthew Spellberg and Richard Sommer

Season 3 · Episode 13

Thursday, September 16, 2021 • Duration 46:54

Matthew Spellberg is a scholar whose topic of study is the comparative history of dreaming—how dreams are experienced, shared, and made use of in different cultures. Originally trained as an architect, Professor Richard Sommer is interested in where politics and design meet. He writes on monument making, urbanism and time-based architecture.

The pair sit down to discuss dream sharing and the important role psychic spaces play in how we live and work together, mutual interests that have brought them to collaborate on exhibitions and events.

This is the first in a new series of talks on the podcast, where artists, cultural practitioners and other thinkers are invited to discuss a theme connected to our programme, with the duo reflecting on how that influences contemporary culture.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

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Glossary:

Circadian rhythms: physical, mental, and behavioural changes that follow a 24-hour cycle.

Spelunking: cave diving.

Ongees: one of the last hunter-gatherer cultures in the Bay of Bengal.

Dialectic: a discussion between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned argumentation.

Agoraphobia: fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult or that help wouldn't be available if things go wrong. Commonly thought of as fear of open spaces.

Ryan Gander on Boyle Family

Season 2 · Episode 12

Wednesday, April 28, 2021 • Duration 27:00

Gander chose Study of a Coloured Tile Path With Red, Black and White Tiles, 1988 due to seeing a shared interest in time and collecting places in moments. It is a meticulous recreation of a randomly chosen area of the earth's surface in resin, fibreglass and mixed media, perhaps representing a front garden path in London.

Ryan Gander's work takes many different forms, from sculpture, film, writing, graphic design and performance. He joins Ned McConnell from his Suffolk studio for a conversation about working with your kids, fables and fantasy and the gaps between reality and history.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!

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Emma Talbot on Huma Bhabha

Season 2 · Episode 11

Thursday, March 18, 2021 • Duration 23:30

Emma Talbot selected What is Love (2013) by Huma Bhabha when asked to pick a work from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection to discuss in relation to her own practice.

Bhabha’s painted sculpture, which could just as easily be an alien from the future or symbol of an ancient past, forms the basis of a discussion about time travel and the way both artists imbued their works with with feeling and tie the personal up with events in the wider world.

What is Love (2013) is a totemic representation of a body, at a towering 2 meters high and 30 centimeters deep. It is carved from cork from the torso down and the head and shoulders are made from small squares of Styrofoam that have a greenish hue.

Emma Talbot lives and works in London and works primarily in drawing, painting and installation. She studied at the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design and the Royal College of Art, where she is now also a painting Tutor. In March 2020 she won the eighth Max Mara Art Prize for Women, which will result in a solo exhibition at The Whitechapel Gallery in London and Collezione Maramotti in Italy, both in 2022.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what DRAF does? Reach us via davidrobertsartfoundation.com, @draf_art and subscribe to our newsletter!

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Caroline Achaintre on Berlinde De Bruyckere

Season 2 · Episode 10

Thursday, December 17, 2020 • Duration 16:58

Both having keen interests in the animal world, art history and mythology, Caroline Achaintre quickly gravitated to Berlinde De Brucykere when asked to choose a work from the David Roberts Collection other than her own to discuss.

De Bruyckere's Lost II (2007) is a large sculpture made from epoxy, horse skin metal and wood, where what looks like a spineless horse carcass is draped over a domestic table. Achaintre describes being drawn in by the combination of repulsion and attraction to what remains a beautifully crafted object and evocative animal.

It is the starting point for a conversation about processes and influences, which for Achaintre range from 'uncanny valley' robotics, to Japanese figurines from B films, and German Expressionist painters.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what DRAF does? Reach us via davidrobertsartfoundation.com, @draf_art and subscribe to our newsletter!

Image of Caroline Achaintre by Jenna Barberot.

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the Roberts Institute of Art – Details, episodes & analysis

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the Roberts Institute of Art – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other38

Instagram5

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other38

Instagram5

The Guardian1