These are some of the podcasts and websites I admire and enjoy listening to. A small sample!
I understand why Bella Freud, daughter of the painter Lucien Freud and great grand-daughter of Sigmund Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis, has chosen this title for her podcast, but the title is not as good as the content, which is fascinating and has strong echoes with oral history practise. Her opening question is ‘tell me what you’re wearing’ and then follows a broadly life history approach with a focus on clothing. Fashion photographer Nick Knight‘s description of taking a portrait resonates with the practice of oral history. Sam McKnight who describes how he came to cut Lady Diana Spencer’s hair in the short cut we associate her with, rather than the rather fluffier look she set out with. It’s intriguing listening. I particularly loved the episode with Susie Cave, a long time friend of Bella Freud. Guests lie on a couch while Bella sits upright.
Long form interviews interweaving life story with music. Loved a recent one with Edith Hall, a classicist whose energy bursts out of the speakers. Her latest book is Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the ancient Greeks and Me – about intergenerational psychological damage from suicide and characters from Greek tragedy. In the Christmas 2024 edition host Michael Berkeley, himself a consummate musician, shares festive music choices from Private Passions guests over the years, and the memories the music evokes.
Because I’m always interested in life story. The interviewer asks his people to talk about their main influences. Recently Anselm Kiefer. Also Judy Chicago, Anthony Gormley, Rachel Whiteread, Kate Mosse, Penelope Lively, Eileen Atkins, Maggie Hambling, Nicole Kidman, Tracey Emin, Phuong Tam.
Graeme Douglas describes his podcast as dedicated to long form conversations with Aotearoa/New Zealand painters about their lives and practices. Really enjoyed episode 9 with Hannah Ireland and Episode 4 with Hiria Anderson-Mita.
This is the podcast channel of the Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery the purpose-built gallery of Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington – my ‘local’ and under the stewardship of Tina Barton and now Sophie Thorn and and their expert team a source of visual and intellectual stimulation. More and more of what goes on in this important space is being recorded and shared on the podcast channel.
Juggernaut: The Story of the Fourth Labour Government
Produced by Toby Manhire and The Spinoff, this series makes great use of archival audio from Ngā Taonga and, in the first episode, extracts from interviews with David Lange by Judith Fyfe during the 1984 election campaign. The interviews are part of the New Zealand Oral History Archive ‘The Gamble’ interviews OHInt-0324, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. The Gamble project, long name The Campaign Diary of the challengers, used oral history techniques to record regular interviews with leaders of parties contesting the 1984 election and the extracts used in Juggernaut add a unique perspective to archival audio from news and radio. Exciting to hear it.
Empire and Three Million
The history that wasn’t taught when I was at school. Utterly absorbing look at British colonisation and its impacts.
Fantastic history podcast. British but lots to learn here. Beautifully done.
Ruth Rogers of the River Cafe in London knows many of her subjects and uses her knowledge to draw out them out all the while exploring food and memory and the role of food in their lives. Crossover with oral history here: the interviews are prepared for and follow a similar format but they unfold differently with each speaker. Most of the speakers are people Ruth Rogers has an existing friendship relationship with via the restaurant. The person chooses a recipe and cooks it ‘out the back’ with the chefs then reads it aloud to Ruthie. Episodes with Tracey Emin and Mariella Frostrup explore food and poverty – important insights. All are an evocative exploration of the role of the senses in memory. The playwright, David Hare, talks about execrable food at Lancing College in the 1960’s. Only slightly better when I was there for my 6th form years in the mid 1970’s.
My devotion to BBC Radio 4 probably reflects my upbringing in England (I lived there until I was 25) and an element of ongoing cultural attachment. But Women’s Hour is a constant source of varied and useful listening on contemporary social and political issues.
Perennially enjoyable. Fascinating to hear Shirley Collins speak about hearing folk songs as a child and the work of collecting folk songs in England and the USA.
Oral history projects
I happened on this one day and have enjoyed listening. It’s a beautiful example of how to present oral history online, and resonates with me as this is the area I was born in.
Clips from Artists’ Lives, the British Library’s oral history project making life story recordings with artists, curators, art writers and others who work in the field of visual art. Hearing the interview about the Kasmin Gallery was the inspiration for my Art Gallery oral history project which aims to understand the role played by dealer galleries in the arts and the lives and work of the artists they represent.
The Artists Lives project is part of National Life Stories – oral history interviews across different parts of British Life. The Lives in Steel, Booksellers Lives, and Science interviews are particularly interesting.
An inspirational group of oral historians in based in London who co-produce arts and heritage projects with groups who are otherwise under-represented in culture. Beautifully created audio visual stories and exhibitions.
“I am your nanny”/I am not your [m]other
An oral history project about career nannies living and working in New York. The project won the annual Columbia Oral History MA Program’s Jeffrey H. Brodsky Oral History Awardfor its skilful telling of the stories of five nannies: their own childhoods, the women who raised them, their paths into nannying, saying goodbye to children they have cared for, and their relationships with their own biological children. Beautiful interviewing by a thoughtful interviewer.
Oral historian and audio journalist Jonathan Kempster takes his recording equipment and his subject into the outdoors. The episode Decolonising Green Spaces – A radio walk in the Chilterns with Dr Geeta Ludhra and Jonathan’s walk with fellow oral historian Leona Fensome are particularly good.
Other art podcasts
I happened upon the 300th episode of The Week in Art in which the directors of V&A East, the British Museum, and Tate Modern talked about the role of their museums within and outside the museum walls and their thinking about normality for museums (if there is such a thing) and what lies ahead. On Spotify here.
And this discussion between Thomas J Price and Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, the inaugural director of V&A East, is a worthwhile insight into the practice and motivation of Price whose monumental sculptures are found in Hackney and the V&A.
Pip Oldham - Oral Historian 