Errant podcast is an extension of Errant Journal and is a way of doing research and building solidarities across networks and disciplines. It allows us to have conversations with our contributors about a topic related to an issue of Errant, or something completely separate that interests us. We also speak with a wide variety of activists, artists, and researchers that have not (yet) contributed to the journal. The podcast is made in collaboration with artist Jenny Wolka and sound engineer Gerald Mandl. You can also listen to the podcast on Spotify.
Commissioned
Inflated Intimacies: An Audio Monograph on Debt, the Inside and the Outside, by Levi Masuli
In this audio monograph commissioned by Errant Journal, Levi Masuli remoulds sounds and ideas into a bizarre dialogue on utang na loob (‘debt of the inside’) and the notions of the Inside and the Outside in the Filipino language. Two voices, named 1 and 0, explore the notion of debt as a viscous and creative force that connects beings with one another, contrary to its popular transactional and moral definitions. However, debt eventually loses its generative power upon the introduction of numeracy and currency. The topological categories of the Inside and Outside thus emerge to rescue the primal viscosity of debt and other social relations, in order to segregate the intimate from the non-intimate. Masuli thus imagines a world animated by ‘bubbles of intimacy’, and wonders of ways to keep these bubbles afloat amid the apocalypse of ‘the Number’.
Errant Podcast #14, recorded 18 July 2023
The Rematriation Imperative: Returning Ts’msyen Songs – with Robin Gray
For this conversation – of which an edited version is published in Errant Journal No. 5, ‘Learning From Ancestors. Epistemic Restitution and Rematriation’ – I speak with Ts’msyen and Mikisew Cree Assistant Professor of Sociology Robin Gray about the work she has done on the rematriation of Ts’msyen songs. Gray’s research centers primarily on the politics of Indigeneity in settler colonial contexts and consists of community-based research that foregrounds Indigenous laws, ethics, and protocols and applies an Indigenous feminist lens to analyze the poetics and politics of Indigenous return, including the implications for Indigenous nationhood. Gray tentatively defines rematriation as an Indigenous feminist concept, and because of this it offers an antithesis to repatriation that she describes as a ‘legal concept rife with colonial baggage that develops from Euro-Western ideas about nationhood, personhood, property, and ownership’, and a ‘cog in the wheel of settler law that operationalizes the “possessive logics” that underpin “patriarchal white sovereignty”.’
Errant Podcast #13, recorded 17 January 2023
Labour, Self-representation and Solidarity – with Werker Collective
Werker Collective (a.k.a. Werker) is a long-term multifaceted project concerning photography and labor, initiated in Amsterdam in 2009. The collective started as an editorial project, releasing ten issues of Werker Magazine. The group has since focused on developing working methodologies based on counter-archiving, self-representation, self-publishing, image analysis, and collective learning processes. Through several projects over the last ten years, Werker has created an international community of allies, exploring notions of collective authorship, queerness, reactivating oppressed histories, and worker solidarity.
References:
www.werkermagazine.org/werkercollect…/#/projects/1
This episode is part of a series co-produced by A Tale of a Tub, a non-profit institution for contemporary art and culture based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. See: a-tub.org/en
Errant Podcast #12, recorded 25 August 2022
On Solidarity, Community and Landscape – with Merve Bedir
For this conversation we’ve invited architect and researcher Merve Bedir whose ongoing work examines infrastructures of hospitality and mobility. Specifically, we focus on the project Mutfak مطبخ Workshop, that she co-founded with a group of women from Turkey and Syria in Gaziantep in 2015. Promoting a space of proximity and collective decision-making, the Workshop focuses on kitchen-based processes as tools for collective belonging, and food as a starting point to think about production and co-creation, unconditional hospitality and ideas of living together in the city.
An extended version of this conversation was published in the 4th issue of Errant Journal ‘States of Statelessness’.
Errant Podcast #11, recorded 16 August 2022
Systems of Systems – with Rebecca Glyn-Blanco
Today we talk with Rebecca Glyn-Blanco about her research project System of Systems that works at the nexus of public programming, publishing and practice to address the use of technology and bureaucracy in migration processing systems in Europe. System of Systems sees importance in the long-term commitment to focus, not just on the individual migrant experience, but specifically on the systems that produce and process migration, under the pretence of security. By collaborating with artists and architects along with policy-makers and activists, they endeavour to examine migration processing systems from multiple perspectives, and render this highly complex system accessible for non-specialists.
The project was initiated in 2016 by Rebecca Glyn-Blanco, Maria McLintock and Danae Io. System of Systems is in solidarity with people on the move. https://systemofsystems.eu/
This episode is part of a series co-produced by A Tale of a Tub, a non-profit institution for contemporary art and culture based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. See: a-tub.org/en
PODCAST SWAP: Here There Be Dragons, Stockholm series #3, Moving
During our research for our third issue on DISCOMFORT, we came across Here There Be Dragons, the podcast by urbanist, podcaster, and editor Jess Myers that is inspired by the strategies city residents use to navigate fear and uncertainty in their cities. The show takes lived experiences seriously as credible data that reveals the impact of public policy and cultural attitudes on our feelings of safety and insecurity in urban space. Through interviews and research it takes a new perspective on urban insecurity, revealing how our mental maps evolve over time as we shed old fears, myths, and biases while picking up new ones. Each episode asks city residents to talk about the strategies that they deploy, the risks they take, and the boundaries they draw within their cities.
During an online exchange of ideas, Jess suggested a swap between our podcasts, with short introductions for each one. So here is our end of the swap: episode no. 3 of the Stockholm series of Here There Be Dragons. Enjoy!
Have a listen to other episodes of Here There Be Dragons via soundcloud.com/jess-m-815590066/sets/here-there-be-dragons
Errant Podcast #10, recorded 24 March 2022
The Question of Funding – with Amany Khalifa
In this episode we talk with Amany Khalifa, member of the growing collective The Question of Funding that aims to rethink the economy of funding and the culture it produces in Palestine and the world. The collective was born out of informal and open encounters within the wider cultural spheres in Palestine that sought to question, debate, and find solutions to the prevalent constrictive models of international funding on which cultural Palestinian institutions continue to depend. These encounters touched on pressing issues concerning the political and economic roles of cultural work and their implications on cultural infrastructures. Central to these encounters was the recurrent and necessary question of ‘How to Work Together’, through which they now aim to bring together individuals and collectives who actively work on finding new economic structures to overcome existing ones, and to resist the physical and geographical boundaries and restrictions in Palestine, and hopefully beyond it.
References:
Grassroots Al-Quds
Yazan Khalili
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
Question of Funding at documenta fifteen
ELTIQA
Errant Podcast #9, recorded 28 December 2021
Discomfort as (curatorial) strategy – with Amal Alhaag and Rita Ouédraogo
The following conversation was recorded to be published in the third issue of Errant Journal on the topic of discomfort. In it, I talk with Amsterdam-based curators Amal Alhaag and Rita Ouédraogo about the use of discomfort as a curatorial strategy and the necessity of it in changing the way we experience exhibitions as well as the institutional and other structures that underlie the usual ways of looking and working. In particular we discuss the ongoing Metro 54 project A Funeral for Street Culture that they curated together and that was hosted by Framer Framed over the summer of 2021.
References:
A Funeral For Street Culture at Framer Framed
Sonsbeek20->24
Research Center for Material Culture (RCMC)
Errant Podcast #8, recorded 4 November 2021
Funda Community College – with Simangaliso Sibiya and Bukhosi Nyathi
We are joined today by Simangaliso Sibiya and Bukhosi Nyathi to talk about Funda Community College in Soweto South Africa as well as the exchange programme Decolonial Futures that they organize in collaboration with Framer Framed, the Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Founded in 1984, Funda is one of the oldest independent Black-led institutions in the arts sector of South Africa, established in response to the inaccessibility of specialized training during apartheid. Today, Funda continues to serve as a critical point of access to the visual arts sector for young Black South Africans. Funda’s mission is to provide alternative education for social reconstruction based on the informal, local, as well as indigenous knowledge…and always in support of and response to the community.
References:
Funda Community College
Decolonial Futures
Errant Podcast #7, recorded 21 October 2021
Rainbow Soulclub – with Saskia Janssen & George Korsmit
In this episode we talk with Saskia Janssen and George Korsmit who in 2005 initiated the Rainbow Soulclub. The RSC consists of weekly meetings and collaborative projects between artists, art students and clients of The Rainbow Foundation that provides shelter and care for homeless people and for users of hard drugs in Amsterdam. The aim is to share ideas for cooperation on every level. The encounters have spawned a whole diversity of activities over recent years: altering street nameplates, drawing, making pottery, shooting videos, hypnosis sessions, cooking, designing new fonts, record music, make costumes, and transmit cosmic energy.
This episode is part of a series co-produced by A Tale of a Tub, a non-profit institution for contemporary art and culture based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. See: http://a-tub.org/en
References: http://rainbowsoulclub.com/
Errant Podcast #6, recorded 5 October 2021
Cultural identity in the face of the climate crisis – the case of Tuvalu – with Maina Talia
In this episode I talk with activist, scholar and native Tuvaluan Maina Talia. Similar to other small island nations, Tuvalu is threatened by climate change and rising sea levels. But the loss of Land also means the loss of a culture and identity. Partly in continuation of Talia’s essay in the 2nd issue of Errant Journal on Slow Violence we talk about the connection between the Land and cultural identity, the role of indigenous knowledge, and the spirit of community that is so important for Tuvaluans. In addition we talk about the disproportionate effects of climate change, the relation of this type of slow violence and other violences, as well as the need for climate justice.
This conversation was recorded in relation to an essay by the same title published in Errant Journal no. 2 on Slow Violence (https://errantjournal.org/issues/). This episode is part of a series co-produced by A Tale of a Tub, a non-profit institution for contemporary art and culture based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. See: http://a-tub.org/en
References:
Tuvalu Climate Action Network (TUCAN) – https://www.facebook.com/TuvaluClimateActionNetwork/
Errant Podcast #5, recorded 19 August 2021
Cosmopolitical experiments in/out of the museum of natural history – with Ayesha Keshani
In presenting the world as a closed totality, museums of natural history have held a powerful position in telling us what nature is, and by doing so have been a tool for the erasure of worlds. However, even the most classical museum has ‘leaky boundaries’ that point to the impossibility of delineating or excluding different worlds. In this podcast we talk with Ayesha Keshani about her project Muzium Alam; a website that presents a constellation of stories about human and other-than-human practices and politics in a coastal region in Sarawak, Borneo. The museum does not hold any objects but consists of fragments of film, audio narratives, image and text, and is made in close collaboration with friends and collaborators in Sarawak. This project is an ongoing experiment into what a pluriversal museum of natural history could be. One that does not diminish or destroy worlds, but allows for a space for many worlds and natures to exist.
References:
Muzium Alam – https://muziumalam.org/
The sound excerpt features the voices of artists Foo May Lyn and Neyna Radzuan, text fragments drawn from the work of Tom Harrisson and Mayumi Ishikawa, and conversations with project contributors Pak Uning Laut and Alvin Danker.
Muzium Alam was made possible with the support of British Council Malaysia, and the Connections Through Culture program.
Errant Podcast #4, recorded 2 July 2021
Sahifa Journal, independent publishing in Kenya and beyond – with Ngala Chome
With historian of African history and Sahifa Journal’s managing editor Ngala Chome we talk about the importance of creative writing to capture the epistemic complexity and diversity of Africa’s lived experiences. Based in Nairobi, Sahifa is created by and for an (east) African public. Their mission is Afro-centric and eclectic. The European canon is not rejected, but decommissioned as the dominant model for knowledge production and storytelling about Africa. With historical examples such as Sahifa pamphlet in the 1930s and Kwani? Journal more recently, but also contemporary journals like Chimurenga and down river road as inspiration, Sahifa Journal aims to be a new node in the rich web of African publishing practices.
References:
Sahifa Journal – https://www.sahifajournal.com/ |
Kwani? Journal – https://www.kwani.org/publications/kwani-journal.html
Chimurenga – https://chimurengachronic.co.za/
down river road – https://downriverroad.org/
Creator of Sahifa pamphlet (1930-1932) Sheikh Al-Amin bin Ali Mazrui
Errant Podcast #3, recorded 4 June 2021
Mídia NINJA – with Felipe Altenfelder
With Felipe Altenfelder of Mídia NINJA (an acronym for Independent Narratives, Journalism and Action), a free communication network in Brazil, we talk about how they started, as well as their structures and strategies. As a community of like-minded individuals spread throughout Brazil, they are an inspiring example of a decentralized organisation that is able to resist and subvert hegemonic narratives. Because of this, they have acquired real political power that is able to influence topics such as environmental destruction, indigenous empowerment, as well as the main political arena of Brazil.
Read more…
Errant Podcast #2, recorded 10 February 2021
The pluriversity and knowledge as a weaving – with Aldo E. Ramos
In this conversation we talk with artist, traveller poet, and decolonial storyteller Aldo Ramos about his work on the pluriversity he is co-creating in Colombia. He tells about how he came to do this work, and why it is so important for the pluriversity to exist. Not in resistance to Western forms of knowledge, but as a form of re-existence. This knowledge is profoundly communal, relational and created by a weaving based on the South American concepts of sentipensar and buen vivir.
The pluriversity Aldo talks about is built and shared with many people, among others: Patricia Botero-Gomez and Natalia Giraldo Jaramillo.
Errant Podcast #1, recorded 1 November 2020
Building the Baileo – with Romy Rondeltap
In this talk with Romy Rondeltap we discuss the colonization of the Moluccas by the Dutch, and ways of healing the colonial wounds. Romy talks about her own family history, as well as her journey of rediscovering and restoring her Moluccan identity. Several years ago, she founded Building the Baileo; a non-profit organization for preserving and sharing Moluccan culture. On the Moluccas, a baileo is a shared space that is the physical and spiritual heart of the community and the location for all important events. Because it has no walls, ancestral spirits can come and go as they please. Romy’s organization functions as both a metaphor of a baileo, as well as a concrete way to educate, celebrate and share the culture.