BBC Radio 4
New digital programming from BBC Radio 4.
Published: 14 October 2019
New digital programming from BBC Radio 4.
African Renaissance (3 x 60’)
Art Of Now (4 x 30’)
Art Of Now is a series of documentaries exploring the latest worldwide cultural issues, trends, celebrations and rebellions.
In Art Of Now: The Last Exposure, photographer Garry Fabian-Miller makes his last print before his dark room is closed forever. Reflecting a change out of his studio and in the world, we hear his story of printing, a physical, technical skill, as well as a dangerous and smelly one. We envisage the end of the analogue era of photography and celebrate the alchemical eclipse.
Pictured above: Garry Fabian-Miller - portrait, tree avenue.
In Art Of Now: Filth sculptors, performers and painters are turning acts of pollution into works of art; smog, landfill and sewage become beautiful, witty and challenging statements. These provocative and entertaining artists encourage listeners to face the contamination we are inflicting on the planet, asking why don't we care, what could we do about it and where will this damage end.
Art Of Now: Survival focuses on the existential necessity of art in the everyday lives of people who have precious little else and who find themselves sleeping on our streets.
Finally, Art Of Now: Recovery talks to victims of torture from around the world who are trying to rebuild their shattered lives. Art is the medium through which they are able to articulate harrowing experiences and come to terms with their past; and the art studio is a space where they can also escape from dark memories.
- Producers for Radio 4: Sarah Bowen (Filth), Sara-Jane Hall (The Last Exposure) and Neil McCarthy (Recovery) with Alan Hall (Survival, a Falling Tree production).
Sketches: Stories Of Art And People (3 x 30’)
The arts series from the makers of Soul Music and The Untold returns to Radio 4 in December for a third series. Each episode showcases true stories of life-changing encounters with art, in all its forms. It’s a programme about how making and viewing art can sustain and transform our lives.
Previous episodes have featured a young prisoner making sculptures out of soap; a man who is painting a portrait of every person in the city of St Davids; and an orphaned boy living in care who fell in love with a painting in a museum. He came to visit it several times a week for years, until one day he turned up and it was gone. Decades later, with his wife’s help, he tracks down the painting and is reunited with it.
Sketches exhibits stories from makers, creators and non-professional artists who work beyond the walls of major galleries and performance spaces.
- Producers: Mair Bosworth and Becky Ripley for BBC Radio 4
The People’s Pyramid (1 x 30’)
Conor Garrett meets the artists who are planning to build a pyramid in Liverpool constructed from bricks containing the cremated remains of just under 35,000 people.
- Producer: Conor Garrett for BBC Radio 4
The Age Of The Image (4 x 60')
Lights, Camera, Inaction: An Existential Guide To The Movies (1 x 60’)
Matthew Sweet is the everyman antihero, wandering the streets in search of meaning, in this love song to existentialist cinema drenched in the sounds dialogue and music of its subject.
- Producer: Mair Bosworth for BBC Radio 4
Lee Miller (1 x 60’)
And the Academy Award Goes To… (3 x 30’)
Paul Gambaccini traces the history of the Oscars and tells the story behind award-winning films when Radio 4's cinematic series, And the Academy Award Goes To... returns for three more episodes in February 2020.
- Producer: Sarah Jane Hall for BBC Radio 4
