Here, an outline of an old project but one which fundamentally changed my practice as a writer, as an academic and as a lecturer.
[If you want to skip the description of the project and move directly to the audio of the episodes, please find the pilot radio show on Ghosts here; and the episode on Light here. More links to shows will be added as I edit and upload the broadcasts.]
In 2010, I published a newspaper on visual and material culture, offering a space for writers, researchers and practitioners to experiment with different forms of writing and publishing as a way to capture their work, beyond the journal article, beyond the book chapter, and beyond a blog post.
Inspired deeply by Celeste Olalquiaga’s wonderful book on kitsch, The Artifical Kingdom: A Treasury of Kitsch Experience, I hit upon the word paperweight as the title for the publication, in response to her history of the victorian paperweight as offering a microcosm for examination of our natural world.
Paperweight: A Newspaper of Visual and Material Culture published two issues, one themed on Screens and the other on Ghosts.
It was during this period, I was at an Art History in the Pub event, organised by friend and colleague the art historian Matt Lodder. At this event, I took a handful of newspapers to distribute and, during the evening, a man called Chris Dixon approached me, newspaper in hand, and after introducing himself, said the immortal line “You know this [indicating towards the newspaper] is a radio show, right?”.
I laughed; radio was not something I had ever considered.
But Chris was right.
And in 2013 Chris secured me a clear spot at Resonance 104.4fm, and together we tested out his idea, turning the issue of the published paper on ghosts into a pilot of a live one-hour discussion show on topics in visual and material culture.
It worked.
And more than that, as he counted me down to live broadcast from behind the control desk, his fingers counting down the seconds, I remember looking at the clock in the studio as the minute hand moved on to the 12 o’clock position, taking my first breath and thinking: “This is wonderful.”
Chris and I worked together to produce two series of the show and it was one of the most enjoyable things I have done in my professional life. The intimacy of the studio space, the enthusiasm of the guests in speaking about their work, and imagining the conversation my guests and I were having being listened to by people going about their everyday lives put a spring in my step each week.
But, as they say, life had other plans for me. And we stopped after two series.
Here below is a list of the shows and their guests. I will be adding links to the recordings, so if you are interested in a topic or theme, or indeed the research or practice of one of the speakers, do have a listen once I have linked to the original audio files. (Note to self: Add to my to-do list.)
Paperweight Radio: Explorations in Visual and Material Culture
Pilot: Ghosts (First broadcast on 15 March 2013)
Featured: Design historian Paul Atkinson on vapourware; parageographer James Thurgill on haunted places; collector and curator Brad Feuerhelm on occult photography; and nineteenth century literature and culture scholar Clare Pettitt on the nineteenth century telegraphic imaginary.
SERIES ONE
Episode 1: Screens and Ghosts (First broadcast on 5 September 2013)
Featured: The origins of Paperweight with art historian Matt Lodder; media scholar Øyvind Vågnes on Abraham Zapruder’s film of the assassination of JFK; and design historian Paul Atkinson on vapourware.
Episode 2: Light (First broadcast on 12 September 2013)
Featured: Historian of science Simon Werrett on the history of fireworks; design historian and material culture theorist Katherine Feo Kelly on home organisation and modernism; architectural historian and critic Douglas Murphy on nineteenth century glass and iron structures; and design historian and artist Emily Candela on X-ray crystallography and postwar British design culture.
Episode 3: Paper (First broadcast on 19 September 2013)
Featured: Art historian Beth Williamson on the digitisation of artists’ books; Head of Museums and Collections at the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture Zoë Hendon on the Sonic Wallpaper project; Elizabeth Montagu biographer and eighteenth century literature scholar Elizabeth Eger on the paper culture of the Bluestocking circle; and literature scholar and historian Helen Smith on the paper culture of early modern England.
Episode 4: Maker Culture (First broadcast on 26 September 2013)
Featured: A conversation with artist, curator and maker Helen Carnac exploring Maker Culture; and V&A Visiting Research Fellow Gavin Grindon on Maker Culture in the context of social movements and activism.
Episode 5: Mother/Daughter (First broadcast on 3 October 2013)
Featured: Sociologist Katherine Appleford on the role of fashion in the mother-daughter relationship; art historian Catherine Grant and artist Lisa Castagner on nineteenth century Invisible Mother portraits; and historian Fern Riddell on the suffragette Kitty Marion.
Episode 6: The Ecological (First broadcast on 10 October 2013)
Featured: Contemporary art historian Wood Roberdeau on how ecological concerns and ideas intersect with contemporary art practice; sustainable design scholar Paul Micklethwaite on the role of sustainability in design practice; and geographer Richard Bater on the politics of water in post-Soviet states.
SERIES TWO
Episode 1: Collections (First broadcast on 19 June 2014)
Featured: Goldmiths Curator of Art and Textile Collections Jenny Doussan; material culture specialists and historians Leonie Hannan and Kate Smith from University College London’s 100 Hours Project; Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture’s Head of Museum Collections Zoë Hendon; and the artist and writer Jane Wildgoose, keeper of the Wildgoose Memorial Library.
Episode 2: Animals (First broadcast on 26 June 2014)
Featured: Contemporary art historian Lynn Turner on contemporary art practice and animals studies; medieval art historian Robert Mills on animals in medieval manuscripts; and Edinburgh School of Art’s Chancellor’s Fellow Michelle Bastian on co-designing research with non-human animals.
Episode 3: Domesticating the Modernist Body (First broadcast on 3 July 2014)
Featured: Design historian Jessica Kelly on Modernism at home and in practice; designer Julijonas Urbonas on gravity effects and the euthanasia roller coaster; curator Mary Vaughan Johnson on The Glass House; and architectural historian Simon Weir on Salvador Dali’s Anti-Modernism.
Episode 4: Mixed Media (First broadcast on 10 July 2014)
Featured: Art historians Matt Lodder and Sarah Demello on art in TV and Film; geographer Elizabeth Haines on colonial cartography; architect Maria Macken on book architecture; and artist Judy Spark on communication technology in fine art practice.
Episode 5: The Art School (First broadcast on 17 July 2014)
Featured: Art historian Beth Williamson on Tate’s Art School Revisited project; cultural historian Emily LaBarge on music in the art school; and art historian John Beck and artist Matthew Cornford on The Art School and Culture Shed book project.
Episode 6: Plastic (First broadcast on 24 July 2014)
Featured: Material scientist Paul Tangney on the history and material properties of plastic; sociologists Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward on the rise of vinyl in the digital age; art historian Matt Lodder on plastic surgery in fine art practice; communications scholar Emily Yochim on young men and skateboard culture; and archaeologist Sara Perry on the plasticity of media in the curator-audience relationship.