the Roberts Institute of Art

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).

Julie Ezelle Patton’s 'Three Phases of Eva, 1965' is written in response to Eva Hesse’s 'Three' (1965), a triptych of gouache and oil on paper collage. Patton takes Hesse’s triptych and title to structure the poem in three, imaginatively exploring Hesse's name, work and life, from Patton's first memory of hearing the artist’s name to once assisting Hesse’s partner, artist Tom Doyle. For Patton, the encounter with this work becomes a point of departure to play with language just as Hesse experimented with materials, and to reflect on acts of violence, from Hesse’s experience of fleeing from Nazi Germany in her childhood, to current events today.

Renee Gladman’s 'All These Not-Places for Wandering' is written in response to Ayan Farah’s 'Stardust' (2011), a work dyed and bleached by UV light and painted with acrylic paint. Gladman approaches the work and the project of writing about it questioningly. Taking the encounter with the work as one of ‘wandering’ through it, Gladman follows the different lines of thought that Farah's atmospheric work prompts, reflecting on the relationship between thinking, seeing and sensing.

In this podcast, artist Valerie Asiimwe Amani discusses her first live performance 'To dismantle a house' which was jointly commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art and South London Gallery and presented in June 2022.

DJ and producer, Nkisi, aka Melika Ngombe Kolongo, who was commissioned as part of the 2017 Evening of Performances, invited artist and choreographer Tiran Willemse, to chat about performance, their collaborations, and their most recent work (bb), which looks at the structures of support and maintenance from the theatre.

First encountering Bethan Huws' work during the degree show at the Royal College of Art in 1988, Phyllida Barlow recalls how, ever since then, it has had an impact on her own approach to sculpture. Phyllida joins Ned McConnell for a discussion of Huws' work, how sculpture has a sensory language and what her own relationship to collecting and objects is.

Acclaimed photographer Hrair Sarkissian is in discussion with independent curator and co-director of Culture+Conflict, Michaela Crimmin. Together, they explore Sarkissian’s foundational training in Damascus and how photography can be used to explore trauma, memory and identity.

Remembering first coming across the work of Boyle Family in the contemporary art section of Manchester Library when at university, Ryan Gander chose one of the group's epic World Series wall sculptures from David and Indrė Roberts Collection to discuss.

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.

Glasgow-based artist France-Lise McGurn has chosen to talk about Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka’s drawing Sur La Plage, made circa 1926. This drawing from the David Roberts Collection becomes the basis for a conversation that touches on the female nude, Madonna videos and cigarette packets.

Both working across dance and visual arts contexts and frequent collaborators, SERAFINE1369 (who is Jamila Johnson-Small, a London born and based artist also known as Last Yearz Interesting Negro) and Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome join DRAF Curator Ned McConnell to talk about how they work with movement and dance.

For this podcast, artist Shezad Dawood was invited to discuss themes connected with his Leviathan project. Here Dawood talks to ecological geneticist Professor Madeleine van Oppen as part of his ongoing research into the connections between ocean conservation, migration and mental health.