Jo Gibson and Sophie Hope begin a new series examining the history of social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Echoes and the Unsaid | Episode 01

January 23 | 2026 PARTICIPANTS

Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope

COMMENTARY This is the first episode in a nine-part series hosted by Jo Gibson (Research Fellow, Institute for Social Justice, York St John University) and Sophie Hope (co-lead of the De-centre for socially engaged practice and research at Guildhall School of Music and Drama). For the first episode Jo and Sophie introduce their research into social practice programmes and projects at Guildhall School of Music and Drama from the 1970s to the 2020s, and give a flavour of what’s to come!

REFERENCES Introducing the De-Centre podcast on Miaaw.net Sign up to the De-centre for Socially Engaged Practice and Research mailing list More about Jo Gibson’s work

More about Sophie Hope’s work Guildhall School of Music and Drama Institute for Social Justice, York St John University Our first miaaw.net podcast: Cultural Democracy in Practice

Today A Culture of Possibility celebrates its fifth anniversary with an in-depth discussion with Griselda Goldsbrough about arts in hospitals. JANUARY 16 | SERIES 2026

A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY | EPISODE 60

Arlene Goldbard | Griselda Goldsbrough | François Matarasso

Griselda Goldsbrough is a visual artist and writer, and community educator. She has over 15 years’ experience in devising and curating creative art, science and literature programmes and events.

On episode 60 of A Culture of Possibility co-hosts Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with Griselda Goldsbrough, Art and Design Development Manager of the National Arts in Hospitals Network, “a resource for arts managers in hospitals to champion hospital arts across the UK, supporting recovery and wellbeing.”

The stories she tells about working with patients, staff, and others will inspire you!

National Arts in Hospitals Network

Griselda on LinkedIn

The first in a new Miaaw series, in which we introduce and showcase other podcasts. In this episode the Irene Taylor Trust present Solidarity Tracks, a podcast about working with music in prisons.

PARALLEL STREAMS | EPISODE 01

JANUARY 9 | 2026

Sophie Hope | Sara Lee

The Irene Taylor Trust began in 1995 in memory of Irene Taylor who had a personal interest in both penal reform and music. While serving on the selection panel for the Butler Trust prison awards scheme, Irene had come across Sara Lee, who was at that time music co-ordinator at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Following Irene’s, the Taylor family decided to set up a charity that would continue to do the work that she had been so in favour of, and invited Sara to set up the Irene Taylor Trust Music in Prisons programme.

Sara has led the trust’s music work ever since.

Sophie Hope recently met Sara Lee, and discovered that the Trust has produced a series of podcasts that describe work that fits directly into our areas of interest. Rather than interviewing Sara, Sophie decided to ask if we could republish one of their podcasts.

This has become the first in a new Miaaw series in which we invite you to listen to other podcasts we think you might enjoy; podcasts that complement, and in some cases extend, the range of actions and works we cover.

The Irene Taylor Trust

Irene Taylor Trust Youtube channel

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Irene Taylor Trust

Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk to Su Jones about the reactions she has received to her paper Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience, and what she hopes happens next.

Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | Episode 82

January 2nd | 2026

Sophie Hope | Su Jones | Owen Kelly

Last summer Su Jones finished writing Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience, a report formed around case studies of 14 visual artists from three English regions. She had been working on it for the last two years.

In this episode Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk to Su Jones about the reactions she has received, and her feelings about them. She discusses the position of an independent researcher and the influence she has, or doesn’t have. She talks about the precarious position that visual artists occupy in a country in which increasing numbers of people occupy precarious positions.

Should artists receive a basic incomes, as they have in Irish experiments, or does that simply amount to special pleading? Would a better proposal involve everyone receiving a universal basic income which artists can use to enable them to practice as artists, golfers can use to practice golf, and chess players can use to practice chess?

Su Jones: Artists’ Lives: ecologies for resistance, an overview

Su Jones’ writings at Arts Professional

Su Jones’ article at Arts Professional (paywall)

Su Jones’ article at Arts Monthly (paywall)

Ireland: basic income for artists

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about redemption: : the understanding that we can learn from experience and choose to realign some aspect of our lives to our deepest values.

How much do people believe positive change is possible? How much are people’s ideas of possibility constrained by a certainty that our pasts over-determine our future?

DECEMBER 9 | SERIES 2025

STREAM A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY | EPISODE 59

Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso

On episode 59 of A Culture of Possibility, co-hosts Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk about redemption: the understanding that we can learn from experience and choose to realign some aspect of our lives to our deepest values. We were moved to explore this by the prevalence of “cancel culture” in the US and to an extent, the UK.

Once a phenomenon of the left, now strongly influential on the right, people are singled out and vilified for things they said or did decades earlier, or they become targets of persistent, angry campaigns aimed at shaming or ostracizing them for using objectionable language or disagreeing with those in power.

Core to community-based arts is the idea that when people speak for themselves, representing their truths, they may influence others to listen deeply and reach a more loving or just understanding.

These days, how much do people believe positive change is possible? How much are people’s ideas of possibility constrained by certainty that our pasts over-determine our futures?

We support freedom of expression and believe in redemption. Can people like us influence cultures that don’t?

Shadow World: anatomy of a cancellation

When Arlene Goldbard is not being a cultural activist or a consultant, she paints. When she is not painting she writes. She writes essays and novels. Her latest novel The Intercessor has just come out.

Owen Kelly talks to Arlene about how this specific burst of writing began, how the novel grew from the initial writing, and what she hopes the published book might achieve. DECEMBER 5 | SERIES 2025

STREAM Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | EPISODE 81

Arlene Goldbard | Owen Kelly

This month Owen Kelly discusses Arlene Goldbard’s new book, a novel titled The Intercessor, and asks why she chose to write this unusual kind of novel at this particular time.

The novel offers a linked series of short stories, each foregrounding one character from a group whose stories eventually interlock. All of the characters have political, social or spiritual issues which come to seem less like categories than like different coloured lenses through which we can approach the world.

The novel explores the Jewish Renewal movement, among other themes, without wanting its audience limited to Jews or even less to Jews with an interest in the Jewish Renewal movement.

Arlene explains how this specific writing began, how the novel grew from the initial writing, and what she hopes the published book might achieve.

Arlene on Wikipedia

Arlene’s website

Arlene Goldbard: Clarity (2004)

Arlene Goldbard: The Wave (2013)

Arlene Goldbard: The Intercessor (2025)

Jewish Renewal, described on Wikipedia

Adin Steinsaltz: The Thirteen Petalled Rose

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso interview Laura Raicovich about Fall of Freedom, which begins on the day this podcast drops. NOVEMBER 21 | SERIES 2025

STREAM A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY | EPISODE 58

Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso | Laura Raicovich

On episode 58 of A Culture of Possibility, Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with writer and curator Laura Raicovich, one of the initiators of Fall of Freedom, an action beginning 21 November in the US, described as “an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation,” “activating a nationwide wave of creative resistance.”

Artists and organizations are invited to participate by hosting public events of any size. We’ll talk about the organizers’ hopes and their sense of why and how art can resist authoritarianism.

Since this podcast goes out on November 21, it could not be timelier. Listen to the podcast, go to miaaw.net to get the links, and then look and see what is going on where you are!

Fall of Freedom website

Download the Fall of Freedom Toolkit

This month Owen Kelly looks at some of the deeper meanings of Katie Lam’s recent remarks on cultural coherence.

NOVEMBER 7 | SERIES 2025

STREAM Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | EPISODE 80

Owen Kelly

In this episode Owen Kelly looks into the idea of cultural coherence, something that bubbled to the surface after Katie Lam, a member of parliament for the Conservative Party used it in an interview with the Sunday Times. She appeared to use it one way, and then later claimed she meant it in a rather different way.

What do people mean by cultural coherence? Should we regard the idea as dog-whistle politics, or should we see it as a useful idea we need to claim for ourselves, before it gets claimed by those who would whistle to dogs…

Sam Leith: In Defence of the Rules-based Order, in The Spectator

Tali Fraser: The Tories and the search for cultural coherence on ConservativeHome

The Sustainability Directory