Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast

To accompany the first episode of the new season of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast by Samm Anga, Veronica Petukhov reimagines the mythological character of Lisovyk. Also known in Russian as leshy or borowy, leśnik, leśniczy, lasowik, in Polish, Lisovyk is inspired by Slavic folk tales Veronica's grandmother would tell her when she would visit her in Odesa in Ukraine. As the story goes The Lisovyk is a seldom seen forest spirit who is mostly harmless but when angered can be treacherous. Veronica reimagines this entity through a 3D environment, layering poetry over an uncanny floating forest, using augmented reality and glitchy visuals to create a hypnotic digital universe.

Watch the video component of Lisovyk in Spotify or on our website at: https://fermynwoods.org/lisovyk-veronica-petukhov/

Episode 15 of the podcast features an original audio work by Samm Anga and a discussion with Veronica Petukhov, who collaborate as audio-visual duo Muto Major.

The pair responded individually to the theme of Xylophobia, our new two-year programme funded by Arts Council England. The programme is named from the fear of wooden objects or forests, addressing related fears and issues of place and belonging which go to the heart of community feelings of exclusion from both the art world and woodland spaces.

The first episode of the new season of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast features an original audio work by Samm Anga and a discussion with Veronica Petukhov, who is part of the collaborative audio-visual duo Muto Major, with Samm. The pair responded individually to the theme of Xylophobia. Xylophobia is Fermynwoods Contemporary Art's new two-year programme funded by Arts Council England. The programme is named from the fear of wooden objects or forests, addressing related fears and issues of place and belonging which go to the heart of community feelings of exclusion from both the art world and woodland spaces. In this new sound work Samm takes a solitary journey into his own psyche and heritage, ruminating on his own fear of nature: water. Through field recordings, sonic representations of Nigerian mermaid song and recorded conversations with his parents, he navigates the listener through a rich ambient soundscape. More at: https://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-15-samm-anga/

Spotify episode video by Sapphire Goss

Musician and artist Rebecca Lee returns with a new sound work and discussion in the last podcast of our 2021 season. This is the second work Rebecca has made in response to and collaboration with the students from The CE Academy as part of ourAlternative Provisionprogramme. Last year, Rebecca’s You Can Hear The Wind presented student recordings made during workshops in the previous school year in as pure a form as possible whilst still resulting in a cohesive listening experience. For this new work, Dream Job, she has approached the recordings of her 2021 Zoom workshops the same way she approaches the music she makes as Bredbeddle - elevating the experience of making to art. She discusses these different approaches, her socially engaged practice, and how the medium might still be the message, in a discussion with Assistant Director Jessica Harby later in the episode. More at http://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-14-rebecca-lee/

In this episode, artist Simon Faithfull is in discussion with curator Yasmin Canvin about his influences, his work, and the dark humour of Sisyphus. Simon's work Going Nowhere 1.5 is part of the group exhibition Where to Stand in the Wind at East Carlton Countryside Park. More at http://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-13---simon-faithfull/

In this episode, the Fermynwoods Podcast shifts slightly from our current programme theme of how humans influence and affect the landscape around them, to how a history of changing landscapes can shape a human. Sayed Sattar Hasan is a British-born artist based in Oslo, Norway. His work explores the parameters of national identity, heritage and belonging and the faultlines between tradition and change. In this new sound work, made during a mandated travel quarantine between his past and current home, he tells the epic tale of his alter ego Hasansen, digging down into the layers of the places and cultures that have made him. More at http://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-12---sayed-sattar-hasan/

An enhanced discussion between Fermynwoods Director James Steventon and David Blyth. David Blyth is an artist and Course Leader in Contemporary Art Practice at Gray's School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. His work is informed by the craft skills of taxidermy and draws upon narratives of folklore, shamanism and cultural memory. David's work will be in included in our upcoming exhibition The Howse Shal Be Preserved at Rockingham Castle starting 11 July 2021. This episode of the Fermynwoods Podcast is supported by Arts Council England and by a grant from Localgiving and Postcode Places Trust, a grant-giving charity funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery. More about this episode here: http://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-11---david-blyth/

Artist Lucie McLaughlin mines her everyday for sounds in the three-part audio work Clickety-Clack. In this work, we can hear the sound of seagulls, a printer dancing, music leaked through walls, the quiet rabble of voices outside a pub and the purr of a washing machine. In the form of a triptych of sound works, Clickety-Clack comprises field recording and constructed narrative sequences. Here, the material of listening is loose footed, both aware of its construction and interrupted by words. Perspectives on familiar or often overlooked sound are shifted into condensed spaces to reveal an aural poetics in movement, whilst the words performed ask questions of the spaces we’re in or are hearing. This episode of the Fermynwoods Podcast is supported by Arts Council England and by a grant from Localgiving and Postcode Places Trust, a grant-giving charity funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery. Clickety-Clack was originally commissioned as part of URGENCIES at CCA Derry~Londonderry, a project supported by Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Derry City & Strabane District Council. More on this episode here: http://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-10---lucie-mclaughlin/ You can find Lucie McLaughlin at https://www.luciemclaughlin.com/

Artist Marie-Chantal Hamrock presents new audio work The Iron, The Pitchfork & The Sow in this latest episode of the Fermynwoods Podcast. Building on her film There is Something in the Ground, There is Something in the Sky from our online Triple Harvest exhibition, Marie combines real and embellished Northamptonshire histories in this tale of ritual. Thank you to Corby Borough Council Archives and artist Amanda Loomes for sharing material included in this work. Marie-Chantal Hamrock can be found at: https://www.mariehamrock.com/ More on this episode, including images and transcript, at our website: http://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-9---marie-chantal-hamrock/

The second season of our podcast starts with an original audio work by, and discussion with, Anna Brownsted. Anna works across a wide range of media including sound, installation, and performance. Her work Week Nine was originally released by HOME Manchester during the ninth week of England's first lockdown. It is a cinematic landscape, meant to be listened to via headphones in a dark room. Feeling zapped? Want to get away? We offer deep relaxation at its most unexpected. Join us on a journey for your own good – rethinking productivity, one week at a time… Week Nine is a Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Homemakers commission, with support from Arts Council England and Cambridge Junction Anna Brownsted: https://www.annabrownsted.com/ HOME Manchester Homemakers series: https://homemcr.org/event/homemakers/ Cambridge Junction: https://www.junction.co.uk/ More at our website: http://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-8---anna-brownsted/

For the final episode of our first podcast season, host and Assistant Director at Fermynwoods Jessica Harby talks with artist Geoff Diego Litherland about his new album of music. Since 2016, Geoff's practice developed from painting landscape to cultivating it. He grew a field of flax, harvested and spun the fibres, and then learned to weave his own uniquely textured linen canvases. This year, he turned those weaving patterns into sound loops to produce the basis of music, now available on his album Woven / Ground. Listening to the music, which runs throughout this episode, is listening not only to his paintings, but to the entire journey from cultivated dirt to finished work of art. http://fermynwoods.org/fermynwoods-podcast-7---geoff-diego-litherland/