Shade

Shade Podcast closes out 2025 by returning to the Shade Art Review archives. This episode adapts "Oh God It's Frieze Week Again," an article I wrote in October 2023, asking: Who gets to show up in the art world? As Art Basel Miami Beach wraps the year's art fair circuit and we await next week's Turner Prize announcement, I explore the barriers disabled artists and arts workers face during heightened art world moments—from navigating packed art fairs to participating in gallery openings and museum events.Nnena Kalu's historic Turner Prize nomination—the first learning-disabled artist shortlisted in the prize's 41-year history—raises urgent questions about who the art world has traditionally welcomed into its most prestigious spaces. I reflect on what accessibility actually means.Featuring thoughts on our right to retreat, the pressure for disabled artists to always be visible and what deep collaboration with disabled and neurodivergent communities could actually look like. What would it look like if retreating was considered an essential part of showing up?Read the full article at Shade Art Review here. Contact: lou@shadepodcast.co.uk | Instagram: @shade_podcast. Shade is an independent, one-person operation. If this podcast resonates, please share and subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shade Podcast is back. After months away, I'm returning to what we were at the beginning—intimate, unedited conversations, just me and you. This episode adapts an article I wrote in February 2024 for Shade Art Review, asking: Where is the Black Nan Goldin? Where is the documentary photography showing Black intimacy—real, unguarded, not staged, celebrated in major exhibitions or published by prominent publishers? 22 years after I viewed Nan Goldin's The Devil's Playground at Whitechapel Gallery, I explore why I haven't seen a Black photographer gain the same recognition for work depicting intimacy with the same unflinching honesty.This isn't about replicating what Goldin did. It's about wondering why Black artists working in this space haven't emerged to the foreground with the same institutional support. As Black people, we move through the world with vulnerability. Our bodies have been mistreated and misrepresented throughout history. So maybe there's a reason why not all is being revealed.This article led to an exciting collaboration I'll share more about when I can.Read the full article at Shade Art Review: https://shadepodcast.substack.com/Contact: lou@shadepodcast.co.uk | Instagram: @shade_podcastShade is an independent, one-person operation. If this resonates, please share and subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of conversations with art educators expand on the ideas presented by Visualise: The Runnymede Trust and Freelands Foundation 2024 report on Race & Inclusion in Secondary School Art Education. In this episode 'Visualise the Future' we are joined by Carey Robinson, Deputy Director, Learning and Public Programmes at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. She has formerly held strategic, curatorial, and creative producer roles at leading cultural institutions including Tate, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the South London Gallery, and The Courtauld. Carey and I reflect and expand on the reports recommendations for the future and imagine a new direction for art education in the U.K. Carey's referenced the following resources in our conversation:Anti-Racism Framework for Initial Teacher Training/Educationhttps://indd.adobe.com/view/ffcc4fdd-e948-41fc-bb21-fca9e82b6b91 Centre for Creative Explorations (Dr Clare Stanhope)https://centreforcreativeexplorations.weebly.com/ Dr Claire Stewart-Hall (constructions of race in education)https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/staff/associate-staff/claire-stewart-hall/ Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality (CRED)https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/research/centre-for-race-education-and-decoloniality/ My Primary School is at the Museumhttps://www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/resources/reports/161107-primary-at-museum-report-stage-7-visual-interactive.pdf https://paradigmproject.co.uk/Read the report Freelands Foundation Visualise report here. Executive producer and host Lou MensahShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast WebsiteMusic King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEdit & Mix by Tess DavidsonEditorial support Dale Berning SawaPodcast design Joel Antoine-WilkinsonShade Art Review Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of conversations with art educators, practitioners and makers expands on the ideas presented by Visualise: The Runnymede Trust and Freelands Foundation 2024 report on Race & Inclusion in Secondary School Art Education. In this episode 'Art Outside the Classroom' we are joined by Dr Sadegh Aleahmad, an Iranian-born multi-disciplinary artist, facilitator and lecturer based in London. Sadegh's practice explores dynamics of his diasporic identity by experimenting with mirrors and voice. Today, we discuss Sadegh's art education work beyond the classroom, enabling new ways of thinking, creating and coming together in community.Freelands Foundation works to broaden access to art education and the visual arts across the UK. They work with teachers and educators to develop diverse and ambitious approaches to art education. Read the report Visualise report here. Executive producer and host Lou MensahShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast WebsiteMusic King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEdit & Mix Tess DavidsonEditorial support Dale Berning SawaPodcast design Joel Antoine-WilkinsonShade Art Review Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This new weekly, five part series of conversations with art educators, practitioners and makers expands on the ideas presented by Visualise: The Runnymede Trust and Freelands Foundation 2024 report on Race & Inclusion in Secondary School Art Education. These conversations aim to support educators in providing a more diverse art curriculum. In today's episode 'Broad canvas' I talk with Henry Ward, an artist, educator and the Director of Freelands Foundation and Shabna Begum, CEO of the Runnymede Trust who give an overview of the UK arts education ecosystem.Freelands Foundation works to broaden access to art education and the visual arts across the UK. They work with teachers and educators to develop diverse and ambitious approaches to art education. Read the report Visualise report here. Apologies for the disruption to sound quality in this episode.Executive producer and host Lou MensahShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast WebsiteMusic King Henry IV original composition for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEdit & Mix by Tess DavidsonEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Rodney (b. 1961, West Bromwich; d. 1998, London) worked across sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, and digital media, experimenting with new materials and technologies throughout his life. His work is known for being incisive, acerbic, and evocative in its analysis of the prejudices and injustices surrounding racial identity, Black masculinity, chronic illness, and Britain's colonial past. Rodney was also co-founding member of the BLK Art Group: an association of young Black artists formed in Wolverhampton in 1982.Visceral Canker is the major survey of the artist’s work at Spike Island, bringing together all of Rodney's surviving works. This includes large-scale oil pastels on X-rays, kinetic and animatronic sculptures, and restaged installations, as well as sketchbooks and rare archive materials, spanning 1982 to 1997. Also on display is Autoicon (1997–2000), an interactive digital artwork initiated by Rodney and finalised by a group of his close friends after he died from sickle cell anaemia in 1998. The exhibition is curated by Robert Leckie, Spike Island’s former Director, and Nicole Yip - the gallery’s new director. Today, I am joined by both Nicole and Robert, to discuss the life and work of Donald Rodney, the ambitions of the exhibition and the complexities involved in interpreting an artist’s work once they are no longer with us. The exhibition will tour at Nottingham Contemporary from 28 September 2024 to 5 January 2025 and at Whitechapel Gallery from 12 February to 18 May 2025.Please support our independent podcast by donating £5 hereRead Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Series 11 | 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast WebsiteShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEdit & Mix by Mae-Li EvansEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew Krishanu (b.1980, Bradford, UK) paints atmospheric, pared-back compositions including scenes from the artist’s life, particularly his childhood years in Bangladesh growing up with his brother, and their parents—a British Christian missionary and an Indian theologian. In the paintings, seemingly familiar narratives are alluded to but destabilised. The viewer’s own projections are called upon to fulfil the interpretive loop, raising questions about childhood, religion, race, power, and the legacies of empire.The Bough Breaks is showing at Camden Art Centre until June 23. Krishanu's forthcoming solo exhibition will show at Tanya Leighton L.A., in the autumn.Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Series 11 | 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast WebsiteShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEdit & Mix by Mae-Li EvansEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the first of our episodes from the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.Today, I am delighted to hand the mic to my dear friend the arts writer Dale Berning Sawa, who met with John Akomfrah at the preview of The British Council commission Listening All Night To The Rain. You'll also hear from me in this episode and Dale shares a reflection on her first Venice experience and conversation with the artist on this special occasion. You can also enjoy Dale's review of Listening All Night To The Rain and images from the exhibition, in Shade Art Review. today.Listening All Night To The Rain continues artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah’s investigation into themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change with a renewed focus on the act of listening and the sonic. The exhibition, conceived as a single installation with eight interlocking and overlapping multi-screen sound and time-based works, is seen as a manifesto that encourages the idea of listening as activism and positions various progressive theories of acoustemology: how new ways of becoming are rooted in different forms of listening. Encouraging visitors to experience the British Pavilion’s 19th century neoclassical building in a different way, Akomfrah’s commission interprets and transforms the fabric of the space in order to interrogate relics and monuments of colonial histories.John Akomfrah initially came to prominence in the early 1980s as part of the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC), a collective founded in 1982. An early film by BAFC, titled Handsworth Songs (1986), explored the events around the 1985 riots in Birmingham and London. In recent years, Akomfrah’s work has evolved into ambitious, multi-channel installations presented in galleries and museums worldwide. In 2017, he won the Artes Mundi prize, the UK’s biggest award for international art. He has previously participated in the 58th Venice Viennale with Four Nocturnes, commissioned for the inaugural Ghana Pavilion in 2019, and Vertigo Sea (2015) as part of the 56th International Art Exhibition. The British Council commission Listening All Night To The Rain at the Venice Biennale 2024 runs from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November 2024. Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEditing and mixing by Tess DavidsonDale Berning SawaBritish PavilionVenice Biennale Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ibrahim Mahama is an installation artist who works with textiles, material production and found objects to create large-scale public interventions. He initially garnered widespread attention for his open-air installations made of stitched-together jute sacks that were draped on or over architectural structures, such as libraries, an airport, and a museum, in the cities of Accra and Kumasi, where he is based. His practise involves a collaborative process of sourcing, collecting, reproducing and installing the often-textile based materials he works with. His pieces speak to ideas around historical memories, traditional belief systems, local economies and the democratisation of art. Ibrahim’s works have been shown in various group and solo shows, including The Norval Foundation in Cape Town, The White Cube in London and Hong Kong and has been a part of the Ghana Pavilion for 2019 Venice Biennale, among many others. In this episode, Ibrahim and I discuss his new large-scale public commission at the Barbican, the process behind creating this work and his hopes for its reception.Ibrahim Mahama Purple Hibiscus runs at the Lakeside Terrace at the Barbican from April 10 - 18 August 2024 and is free to the public.Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEditing and mixing by Tess DavidsonEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joy Gregory (b. 1959. Bicester, UK). Born in the UK to Jamaican parents, Joy Gregory’s work explores the impact of colonialism on global perceptions of beauty, memory, botany, health and traditional knowledge. As a photographer, Gregory has worked over decades in various media, including video, digital and analogue photography, film installation, Victorian print processes and more recently textiles; exploring photography as technology and as mode of artistic expression. She is interested in understanding how individuals and communities remember and interpret their history, particularly in relation to their connection to the land.Joy & Lou discuss the themes of process and practice as they have developed throughout the artist’s four decade career. In June, Art on the Underground will unveil a new series of Joy’s artworks at Heathrow Terminal 4 Underground station - envisaging Heathrow as a portal of entry and exit. I spoke with Joy in February, as she embarked on her partnership with Hillingdon-based charity Refugees in Effective and Active Partnership (REAP) facilitating a series of photographic workshops with asylum seekers living in hotels in the Heathrow area, as well as a community group for Afghan women in Hayes and Harlington. These workshops will inform the creation of her artwork for Heathrow Terminal 4, giving space to the stories of newly arrived Londoners, displaced people whose realities are increasingly maligned and misrepresented. The work will offer an indelible trace of the cultures, languages and hopes which coalesce in London. In the Autumn of 2025, Whitechapel Gallery will stage Joy’s first monographic exhibition, surveying a four-decade practice.Thanks for listening to this independent podcast. You can support this work by reviewing and sharing the podcast or becoming a Shade Art Review subscriber (follow the link below for details).Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEditing and mixing by Tess DavidsonEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the final episode in my seven part, end of year series! Inspired by the Black radical tradition of the harmony between the lyrical and visual, I am joined by friends to explore the musical influences that inspire their work. We also look to the people, real and imagined, familial and ancestral who guide them.Cynthia is a costume designer, whose work you will have seen in successful British films, like the recent Rye Lane directed by Raine Allen-Miller. Cynthia's currently showing work at Somerset House in London as part of the exhibition Missing Thread, which charts the shifting landscape of Black British culture and the unique contribution it's made to Britain's design history. Our friendship began in the early 2000s, when we worked together in my capacity as a photographer.It was Cynthia's generosity of ideas and her unique approach to design that inspired me and makes her one of the most revered costume designers today. Cynthia and I sneaked in a super quick, ten minute conversation whilst she was on set last week. She shares her musical influences and talks about how music is the foundation of her design for all of her characters.Please share and review this independent Black art show. Thank you!ENJOY!Follow us:Shade Podcast Spotify Playlist (updated daily)Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Christmas offer codeShade Podcast InstagramMissing Thread Exhibition Somerset HouseCynthia Lawrence John AgentCynthia Lawrence John InstagramThis series was produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonMixing by Tess Davidson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this seven part, end of year series - new episodes are released each weekday between Dec 13-21. Inspired by the Black radical tradition of the harmony between the lyrical and visual. I am joined by friends (artists, dancers, musicians) to explore the musical influences that inspire their work. We also look to the people, real and imagined, familial and ancestral who guide them.Tyrone is a concept driven artist whose skills originate from Jazz and Hip-Hop Theatre. Working as a performer across dance and music, his practice has grown to become a mixture of Krump, contemporary dance, visual art & Jazz music. He performs in Julian Knxx's latest exhibition Chorus in Rememory of Flight, currently running at the Barbican. "There's already a musical language that is embedded in the ideas of that work because of the way Julian is working with choirs, and then I can try and translate that into movement. I have a good relationship with Julian and there's a lot of trust. So in some ways, we've established a chorus."He recently released his debut LP, S!ck - and was called ”one to watch" by Giles Peterson this year. Commissions include a full length theatre work for the Barbican 'An Earnest Life', a duet for Dance Umbrella, Beyond Words & an international Solo work for Hayley Matthews Ensemble. He is a Steve Reid Innovation Award 2019-2020 recipient, and a 2020 Artist in Residence at Clarence Mews Space, 2021 East London Ideas Fund Awardee & 2022 Peter Whittingham Jazz recipient and a 2023 Take Five jazz awardees.ENJOY! Please share and review this independent show. Thank you!Follow us:Shade Podcast Spotify Playlist (updated daily)Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Christmas offer codeShade Podcast InstagramTyrone S!ck LPTyrone x Julian Knxx at The BarbicanTyrone InstagramThis series was produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonMixing by Tess Davidson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.