Arts & Ideas

"I have no relation or friend" - words spoken by Frankenstein's monster in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel. That story, alongside Georg Büchner's expressionist classic Woyzeck, has inspired the new production for English National Ballet put together by Akram Khan.He joins poet Hannah Lowe, who's been reflecting on her experiences of teaching London teenagers; Tash Aw, who explores his Chinese and Malaysian heritage, and his status as insider and outsider in memoir Strangers on a Pier; and New Generation Thinker Eleanor Lybeck, who's been looking at the images of music hall performance and circus life in the paintings of Walter Sickert (1860 - 1942) and Laura Knight (1877-1970) for a conversation exploring different ideas about belonging.Shahidha Bari hosts.Creature: a co-production between English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen opens at Sadler's Wells on 23rd Sept and then tours internationally. Hannah Lowe's new collection from Bloodaxe is called The Kids. Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw is published by Fourth Estate. Sickert: A Life in Art is on show at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool from 18 Sep 2021—27 Feb 2022. It's the largest retrospective in the UK for 30 years. Laura Knight: A Panoramic View is on show at the Milton Keynes Gallery from 9 Oct 2021 - 20 Feb 2022. Eleanor Lybeck is an academic on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council called New Generation Thinkers which turns research into radio. She is a lecturer in Irish Literature at the University of Liverpool and explored her own family history and her great grandfather's links with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in a short Sunday Feature for Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06pqsqrProducer: Tim BanoImage: Akram Khan Credit: Jean-Louis FernandezYou might also be interested in our exploration of language and belonging in which the writers Preti Taneja, Michael Rosen, Guy Gunaratne, Deena Mohamed, Dina Nayeri and Momtaza Mehri compare notes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fh9

The fast fashion industry stands accused of depleting natural resources, creating vast carbon emissions and producing endless garments destined for landfill. So, what can be done? Researchers across creative and scientific disciplines have been looking at how the fashion industry can cut waste, recycle, consume less – and, critically, change our attitudes to what we wear. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to Professor Jane Harris and Professor Simon McQueen Mason about how we can change clothes production and curb our shopping habits. Professor Jane Harris is Director of Research and Innovation (Stratford) and Professor of Digital Design and Innovation at the University of the Arts London. She has over 25 years’ experience in transdisciplinary research, with a background in textile design and extensive experience of computer graphic imaging. Through her research, Professor Harris has devised novel approaches to the digital representation of dress and textiles. She is also Director of the Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT), a five-year industry-led project, funded by the Industrial Strategy through the Arts and Humanities Research Council and part of the Creative Industries Cluster Programme. The project, which delivers sustainable innovation within the entire fashion and textile supply chain, aims to create a new business culture that supports fashion, textiles and technology businesses of all sizes to use R&D to grow. Its focus on sustainability centres around sustainable design and business practice, material usage, and new methods of manufacturing. You can read more about the project here: https://bftt.org.uk/ and its recent report co-authored by here: https://bftt.org.uk/publications/ Professor Simon McQueen-Mason is Chair in Materials Biology at the University of York. His research encompasses various aspects of plant cell wall biology. He is a member of the UKRI-funded Textiles Circularity Centre (Royal College of Art, RCA) and its Materials Circularity Research Strand where his work plays a critical role in helping to establish new processes for using biotechnology to convert household waste and used textiles into new, functional and regenerative textiles designed for circularity. His research makes use of waste cellulose to create textile fibres, which are sent from the University of York to the University of Cranfield where they are spun to make new textiles. These textiles are then sent to the Royal College of Art for the students to design and make new clothing with. You can read more about McQueen Mason’s work around sustainable fashion here: https://www.plasticexpert.co.uk/york-biologists-discover-method-of-turning-waste-into-fashion/ and his latest project, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FT017023%2F1#/tabOverview You can also read more about the Textiles Circularity Centre here: https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-centres/materials-science-research-centre/textiles-circularity-centre/ and find out more about the five UKRI-funded circular economy research centres here: https://www.ukri.org/news/circular-economy-centres-to-drive-uk-to-a-sustainable-future/ Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on festivals, rivers, eco-criticism and the weather. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.Producer: Ruth Watts

One definition of a glitch is a short-lived fault in a system operating otherwise as it should. Glitches in digital systems have been used by artists for at least a decade to produce work with a characteristic aesthetic, that invite reflection on the computer systems that play an ever bigger part in our lives. Matthew Sweet is joined by the artists and theorist of glitches Rosa Menkman and Antonio Roberts to discuss the glitch as a meeting point between technology and aesthetics, along with the novelist Tom McCarthy whose new novel The Making of Incarnation features the work of the psychologist and industrial engineer Lilian Gilbreth (1878-1972), who developed a series of time-and-motion studies which aimed to improve the organisation of factory production lines, and ultimately arrive at the one most efficient way of doing everything. And they're joined by the philosopher Hugo Drochon, who's investigated conspiracy theories and the role glitches play for people who follow them.The Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthy is published in September 2021. Antonio Roberts' website is https://www.hellocatfood.com/ Rosa Menkman's is http://rosa-menkman.blogspot.com/Producer: Luke MulhallYou can find Tom McCarthy in a Free Thinking conversation about the "experimentalism" of Alain Robbe Grillet https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xr4m and he discusses a previous novel Satin Island in this episode with Anne McElvoy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b054t24q

Descending into the nine circles of Hell is one of the key ideas set out in Dante's Inferno. Today's Free Thinking looks at the way his thinking and imagery have been taken up by other artists and writers. Rana Mitter's guests include the art historian Martin Kemp, the painter Emma Safe, the scholar and Dante website creator Deborah Parker and the New Generation Thinker Julia Hartley from Kings College London.Professor Martin Kemp's latest book is called Visions of Heaven: Dante and the Art of Divine Light. He is a leading authority on the work of Leonardo da Vinci and has written explorations of science and art. Dr Julia Hartley has written a book called Reading Dante and Proust by Analogy. The clip from the Dante dramedy she's developing features Sam Ferguson as Dante and Matthew Salisbury as Guido Cavalcanti. Deborah Parker is Professor of Italian at the University of Virginia and has created worldofdante.org You can see examples of Emma Safe's artwork at https://www.emmasafe.com/Producer: Torquil MacLeodThe most recent episode of Words and Music sets extracts from different translations of the key works by Dante with music including by Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Puccini. That will be available on BBC Sounds and the Radio 3 website for 28 days. For a discussion of Dante's writing in The Divine Comedy the Free Thinking Landmarks playlist features a discussion with the scholars Prue Shaw and Nick Havely, poet Sean O'Brien and writer Kevin Jackson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tq3st

Catherine Pepinster, Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley and New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel join Rana Mitter to look at the poet, theologian and now Saint John Henry. The programme explores Newman's conversion from the high church tradition of Anglicanism and the Oxford Movement to the Catholic faith looking at his thinking, his poetic writing and what his story tells us about Catholicism and the British establishment.Catherine Pepinster is former editor of the Tablet and the author of The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy Dafydd Mills Daniel is McDonald Departmental Lecturer in Christian Ethics at the University of Oxford and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. His book is called Ethical Rationalism and Secularisation in the British Enlightenment Tim Stanley is a columnist and leader writer for the Daily Telegraph who studied history at Cambridge and who is a contributing editor for the Catholic Herald https://www.timothystanley.co.uk/index.html Dr Kate Kennedy is Oxford Centre for Life-Writing Associate Director and a music specialist who has written on Ivor Gurney, and co-edited The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory after the Armistice and The First World War: Literature, Music, Memory. You can find her presenting a Sunday Feature for Radio 3 about her research into Ivor Gurney.You can find a playlist Free Thinking explores religious belief https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp including contributions from Ziauddin Sardar, Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Rabbi Sacks, Marilynne Robinson and Simon Schama.Producer: Ruth Watts

From Roman sandals to trainers and stilettos. Shahidha Bari looks at the shoe trade, with guests including Thomas Turner, who has written about sneakers in his book The Sports Shoe, A History From Field To Fashion; Tansy Hoskins,who examines global commerce in her book Footwork: What Your Shoes Are Doing To The World; Rebecca Shawcross, Shoe Curator at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery; and Roman shoe expert Owen Humphreys from Museum of London Archaeology.Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street runs at the Design Museum in London until October 24th Northampton Museum and Art Gallery and its collection of over 15,000 shoes has re-opened this July following a £6million revamp.Producer: Emma Wallace

Artists Sonia Boyce, Isaac Julien, Eddie Chambers and Harold Offeh talk to Anne McElvoy about their art and the influence of the British black arts movement - which began around the time of the First National Black Art Convention in 1982 organised by the Blk Art Group and held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic.Eddie Chambers has written Roots and Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain and Black Artists in British Art: A History since the 1950s. He teaches at the University of Texas, Austin.Sonia Boyce is Professor at Middlesex University, a Royal Academician and the Principal-Investigator of the Black Artists & Modernism project. She will show work in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022.Isaac Julien shows at the Victoria Miro Gallery. His work is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in Scotland until August 31st. Lessons of the Hour is a ten-screen film installation looking at the life and times of Frederick Douglass who, from 1845-7, made repeated visits to Edinburgh, while campaigning across the UK and Ireland against US slavery.Harold Offeh is an artist, curator and senior lecturer in Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University. His work Covers features in Untitled: art on the conditions of our time which runs in a newly curated display at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge 10 July 2021 – 3 October 2021 following its opening at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham. You can also see his work in the Wellcome Collection exhibition Joy which runs until February 2022. Nottingham Contemporary's The Place Is Here brought together around 100 works by over 30 artists and collectives in 2017 when this episode first aired. Producer: Karl Bos Editor: Robyn ReadYou might be interested in our playlist on the Free Thinking programme website Exploring Black History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp

Tokyo used to be presented as the ultimate hyper-modern city. But after years of economic recession the Tokyo of today has another side. A site of alienation and loneliness, anxiety about conformity and identity, it is a place where self-professed 'geeks' (or 'otaku'), mostly single middle-aged men, congregate in districts like Akibahara to pursue fanatical interests outside mainstream society, including cult-like followings of teenage girl singers known as Tokyo Idols.Novelist Tomoyuki Hoshino, photographer Suzanne Mooney, writer/photographer Mariko Nagai and film-maker Kyoko Miyake look at life in the city for the Heisei generation. Presented by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.Director Kyoko Miyake has made a film called Tokyo Idols which looks at the obsession of middle aged men with superstar teenage girls who make a living online Suzanne Mooney's photographs depict the urban landscapes of Tokyo. Novelist Tomoyuki Hoshino's latest book to be translated into English is called ME. It's about rootless millennials and suicide. Mariko Nagai is an author and photographer who has written for children and adults. Her books include Instructions for the Living and Irradiated Cities.The translator was Bethan Jones and the speakers were all in the UK to take part in events as part of Japan Now - a festival at the British Library in London, and in Manchester, Sheffield, Norwich. Programmed by Modern Culture in partnership with the Japan Foundation and Sheffield University.Producer: Luke Mulhall

Who can you trust? That's the question posed in Rashōmon. In today's programme Rana Mitter's guests David Peace, Natasha Pulley, Yuna Tasaka and Jasper Sharp look at both the book and the film.Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story 'In a Grove', published in 1922, became the basis for the 1950 film from Akira Kurosawa 'Rashōmon', one of the first Japanese films to gain worldwide critical acclaim. 'The Rashōmon Effect' has become a byword for the literary technique where the same event is presented via the different and incompatible testimonies from the characters involved. David Peace's book 'Patient X' is a novelised response to Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's last years and his death by suicide at the age of 35. Natasha Pulley is a novelist and Japanophile with a particular interest in Japanese literature of the 1920s, and in the unreliable narrator implied by use of the Rashōmon Effect. Jasper Sharp is a writer and curator, author of the Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema. Yuna Tasaka is one of the contributors to The Japanese Cinema Book published by Bloomsbury. David Peace's third novel in his Tokyo trilogy Tokyo Redux is out this summer. Natasha Pulley's most recent novel is a time travel story set in Napoleonic times - The Kingdoms. Her book The Watchmaker of Filigree Street became an international best seller.Producer: Luke Mulhall.You can find a playlist of Radio 3 programmes exploring Japanese Culture on the Free Thinking programme website from the Tale of Genji to Godzilla, jazz to the sound of rain, Rashomon to Rampo https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq

Climate Change is expected to continue disrupting food production and consumption. Over recent years pressures have intensified on everyone, from those growing food and selling it, to those paying for and eating it. Researchers are considering how we can best ensure our food supplies are sustainable and secure into the future. We look at the possible options: from local food communities and digital small-holder farming to reducing our meat consumption – and, tackling food inequality. Des Fitzgerald asks Professor Peter Jackson and Dr Matthew Davies how we might best ensure that everyone is well fed. Peter Jackson is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield. He is also the Co-Director of the University of Sheffield Institute for Sustainable Food which aims to find dynamic solutions to the challenges of food security and sustainability by drawing on the expertise of researchers across the sciences, social sciences and the arts and humanities. He works on social geography, cultural geography, consumption, identity, families and food. Further information can be found here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/sustainable-food Dr Matthew Davies is Associate Professor at University College London. He is based at the Institute for Global Prosperity which has coordinated an AHRC funded partnership for Prosperity and Innovation in the Past and Future of Farming in Africa (PIPFA). He has been engaged in rethinking the role of small-holder farmers in the future of food production. He also works on a range of topics on environment, society and prosperity in eastern Africa. Details of his research can be found here: https://md564.wordpress.com/ Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.Producer: Marcus Smith