New Thinking: Rediscovering women making film and sculpture
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over 200 women sculptors have been uncovered in the research of Sophie Johnson from Bristol University. She describes some of their creations and discusses the challenges of working with the incomplete personal archives of these artists – including Mrs Goldsmith, Patience Wright, and Catherine Andras, who created wax portrait miniatures and effigies, and Anne Seymour Damer, who carved in marble.
Kathleen Collins died in her 40s and left un-filmed screenplays and unpublished stories which Alix Beeston from Cardiff University has been researching. Collins’ finished film Losing Ground didn’t get a theatrical release when it was made in 1982 but it was restored and reissued in 2015. Now her work is finding a new audience. But how should we approach her unfinished works? Joan Passey hosts the conversation.
Producer in Cardiff: Fay Lomas
Dr Joan Passey teaches English at Bristol University and is a New Generation Thinker working with the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share research on radio.
Sophie Johnson is a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol researching eighteenth century European women sculptors. Her research focuses on women wax modellers and their entrepreneurship. Links to her articles are available at https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/sophie-johnson
Dr Alix Beeston is a feminist writer and academic based at Cardiff University. Her most recent book is Incomplete: The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film. More details of her work are available at https://alixbeeston.com/
With special thanks to Michael Minard, who provided the song ‘It Might Be’ – written by Minard and Kathleen Collins, performed by Jenny Burton, intended for use in an unfinished film project by Collins – which we hear in the podcast.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more conversations about new research available on the website of Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme and another collection exploring Women in the World all available as the Arts & Ideas podcast.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Can I just say? |
| 0:01.5 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | It's such a wonderful listen. |
| 0:05.6 | So nice. |
| 0:06.5 | There are loads more like it on BBC sounds. |
| 0:08.8 | Different paces, different heights. |
| 0:10.6 | The roof is buckling. |
| 0:11.9 | Where you can also listen to live sports commentary. |
| 0:14.2 | It's right foot goes for goal. |
| 0:16.7 | And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories. |
| 0:21.6 | The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession. |
| 0:25.2 | And she's had to live with that. |
| 0:26.8 | So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion. |
| 0:29.7 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.7 | Sort of expecting that every week now. |
| 0:34.6 | Hello, welcome to this new thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast, where we're hearing about lost works by women artists. I'm Joan Passe, a lecturer in English at the University of Bristol, where I study representations of seas and coasts. I'm joined by two scholars today who specialize in uncovering forgotten artworks. Sophie Johnson is also at the University of Bristol |
| 0:55.9 | researching women sculptors. And Sophie, you've found over 200 women sculptors working between the mid-17th |
| 1:03.7 | century and the mid-19th century. Tell us about a piece by one of them. Sure, so I'll have to choose a wax portrait of Lord Nelson, the naval hero. |
| 1:15.6 | And this is by Catherine Andras, who was a wax modeler at the time. And this is where Nelson was |
| 1:21.0 | really popular. And Andras actually made this from life, from a sitting in 1800. It was a small wax miniature only about 15 centimetres |
| 1:30.6 | high, which after Lord Nelson died in about 1805, it was actually then reproduced and the general |
| 1:37.6 | public could purchase this to have as a memento for themselves. Amazing. My other guest is Alex |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.