The Imperial War Museum BBC Radio 3 Remembrance Debate 2020
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2020
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What does it mean to make art to commemorate histories of conflict? Anne McElvoy's guests are artists Es Devlin and Machiko Weston, Art Fund director Jenny Waldman, chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group Ekow Eshun and Paris Agar from the IWM as Radio 3 joins with the Imperial War Museum for the 2020 Remembrance Debate.
Es Devlin and Machiko Weston worked together on a digital artwork commission to mark the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima. What images and words were appropriate to use? https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/i-saw-the-world-end
1,600 volunteers, all men, dressed in replica World War I British army uniforms, and appeared on station platforms and public spaces across the UK in Jeremy Deller's artwork We're Here Because We're Here. That was on of the many projects commissioned by Jenny Waldman as part of 14-18 NOW, the UK's official arts programme for the First World War Centenary.
Ekow Eshun is chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group and creative director of the Calvert 22 Foundation.
Paris Agar is an art curator on the Cold War and Late 20th Century team at the IWM who worked on the What Remains, Culture Under Attack programming and projects to mark the Fall of the Berlin Wall anniversary.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music |
| 0:27.0 | when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.2 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:36.8 | Thanks for downloading this Arts and Ideas podcast. |
| 0:40.4 | Can commemorative art really do history justice? |
| 0:44.1 | That's what my guests will be discussing after this message. |
| 0:47.6 | Classical Fix, the show from Radio 3, |
| 0:50.0 | which opens up the incredible world of classical music |
| 0:52.7 | to people who don't know where to start. |
| 0:55.3 | I'm Jules Buckley and each week I make a playlist for a special guest, a DJ, pop musician, writer |
| 1:01.8 | and they give me their honest reactions. I really loved this piece of music. Really stunning. |
| 1:07.4 | I was so distracted by this horns. I just got really annoyed and switched it off. |
| 1:13.2 | Pick one out of the six. This is tough. Classical Fix, available now on BBC Sounds with a new |
| 1:20.4 | episode every Monday morning. Hello and thank you for joining us for the Imperial War Museum's |
| 1:26.7 | annual remembrance debate. |
| 1:28.9 | Last year, we were considering the threat that conflict poses to art and culture. |
| 1:33.7 | But this time, it's a question of how art can respond to and commemorate conflict. |
| 1:39.4 | What are the challenges of making this kind of work? |
| 1:42.6 | And what do those who commission it want to achieve? |
| 1:46.0 | How effective can art be in deepening our understanding of history? Well, standing by to grapple with |
... |
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