Twist, LR Vandy (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x October Gallery, Chatham Ropery)

In this special episode, author, curator, and archaeologist Dan Hicks joins EMPIRE LINES live, to trace the origins of contemporary conflicts over art, history, memory, and colonialism, through their book, Every Monument Will Fall (2025).This episode was recorded live at Curio at Common Ground in Oxford in October 2025. Find all the information in the first Instagram post: instagram.com/p/DN0R3hN2ExOEvery Monument Will Fall: A Story of Remembering and Forgetting by Dan Hicks is published by Penguin, and available in all good bookshops and online.Hear artist Pio Abad on Giolo’s Lament (2023) at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford: pod.link/1533637675/episode/1e7df6b20f9c99aae3e4df96f50913cfRead about Ali Cherri’s 2025 exhibitions, How I Am Monument at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, and Vingt-quatre fantômes par seconde (Twenty-four Ghosts Per Second) at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, in the Burlington Contemporary: contemporary.burlington.org.uk/articles/articles/ali-cherriFor more about Octavia Butler, hear artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum on It Will End in Tears (2024), at the Barbican in London: pod.link/1533637675/episode/6e9a8b8725e8864bc4950f259ea89310And read about the exhibition, in gowithYamo: gowithyamo.com/blog/pamela-phatsimo-sunstrum-barbicanPRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: ⁠⁠instagram.com/empirelinespodcast⁠⁠Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: ⁠⁠patreon.com/empirelines

18 Joulu 20251h 14min

Wormcasts is a podcast from Chelsea Physic Garden, created by the Young Producers – a group of 16 – 24 year olds working to engage more young people with the garden.  This series explores the global histories of botanic gardens, deceptive plants, working in the garden, and plants in the context of health and wellbeing. Wormcasts are the microbially rich and fertile clumps of soil that worms leave next to their burrows as they forage for food. The Young Producers hope you enjoy the arisings that come from this little patch of green in South West London.  This series was collaboratively produced by the Young Producers at Chelsea Physic Garden (Hwei-Linn Khoo, Amelie Rossati, Zachary Sukonkin, and Tymon Zgorzelski), coordinated by Richard Choksey. The lead producer is Jelena Sofronijevic. Editing and Sound Design by Tymon Zgorzelski.  The Young Producers are funded by generous charitable donations by the Garden’s supporters.Unearthing in January 2026 - listen and follow, wherever you get your podcasts.

8 Joulu 20252min

In this special episode, contemporary artists and filmmakers Miloš Trakilović and Jelena Visković join EMPIRE LINES live, exloring narratives of war, displacement, and visual cultures in the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, through the video essay, Colorless Green Freedoms Sleep Furiously (2023).This episode was recorded live as part of the public programme for soft enclosures, co-curated by Old Mountain Assembly, Rebecca Edwards, and Rina Meta at Forma in London, in October 2025. soft enclosures is an auxiliary programme to Dream States, Artists’ Film International (AFI) 2025.For more information, visit: instagram.com/p/DMxKnjBtFf9/Colorless Green Freedoms Sleep Furiously (2023) is currently on view as part of At the End of the Small Hours, curated by What, How and for Whom (WHW) and Ana Kovačić, at the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb until 30 November 2025.For more about Miloš Trakilović’s 564 Tracks (Not a Love Song Is Usually a Love Song) (2024) at the KW Institute in Berlin, read my article in The New Internationalist: newint.org/art/2025/spotlight-milos-trakilovicMotonation (2024) is currently on view as part of Jelena Visković: HEAT: A Sci-Fi Spa Story at Tallinn Art Hall until 23 November 2025.Listen to artist and filmmaker Saodat Ismailova on Melted into the Sun (2024), on view as part of Nebula, produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film, at the Venice Biennale in April 2024: pod.link/1533637675/episode/Y2IxOWI2YTUtMTI4MS00NzdiLWEyZmUtYmMyYTQ0NmQxMTQ2Saodat Ismailova: As We Fade is at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead until 7 June 2026.Read about Marina Abramović: Gates and Portals at the Pitt Rivers Museum and Modern Art Oxford, in gowithYamo: gowithyamo.com/blog/marina-abramovic-gates-and-portals-reviewFor more about Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019), hear contemporary artists Hoa Dung Clerget and Duong Thuy Nguyen, and gallerist Sarah Le Quang Sang, recorded live as part of the public programme for Only Your Name at SLQS Gallery in London, in July 2025: pod.link/1533637675/episode/NjZmOGE0MmQtZTk5Ni00NTQ1LWJjYjAtMmVjODYzNWMwYjdjFor more from Artists’ Film International (AFI) 2025, read about Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán in this Letter from Timișoara, in Art Monthly: instagram.com/p/DFdBW0eoE55/⁠And view Anca and Arnold’s Rehearsals for Peace (2023) in Seeds of Hate and Hope, curated by Jelena Sofronijevic and Tafadzwa Makwabarara as part of Can We Stop Killing Each Other? at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, from 28 November 2025.PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcastSupport EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

20 Marras 202544min

Composer and artist Raven Chacon amplifies the Catholic Church’s complicity in the suppression of Indigenous people in the Americas, through their composition for organ, Voiceless Mass (2021).Raven Chacon’s Voiceless Mass was performed at St. Giles’ Cathedral in August 2025, as part of Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) 2025.Deep Time 2025: I See Red, curated by Raven Chacon, is at Fruitmarket in Edinburgh from 27 November 2025 to 29 November 2025. This edition of the annual festival of new music accompanies the exhibition of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s work, Wilding, which continues at Fruitmarket in Edinburghuntil 1 February 2026.Raven Chacon’s Silent Choir (2017) is part of this edition of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA), which continues until 30 November 2025.For more about GIBCA, you can read my article in Third Text.For more about the Sámi people and Sápmi region, hear curators Ros Carter and Sofie Krogh Christensen on Pia Arke’s Camera Obscura (1990) at John Hansard Gallery in Southampton and KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin: pod.link/1533637675/episode/OWVhZjc3YWItNDRiYy00MTYyLTk0ZmItZmE5MmJlZDY1YmI1PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: ⁠⁠instagram.com/empirelinespodcast⁠⁠Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: ⁠⁠patreon.com/empirelines

6 Marras 202518min

In this special episode, filmmaker, cultural theorist, and curator Manthia Diawara joins EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss Édouard Glissant’s relations with natural environmental disasters, connecting the islands of the Caribbean and Scotland, through the exhibition, The Trembling Museum (2023-2024).This episode was recorded live as part of PEACE FREQUENCIES, a 24 hour live radio broadcast to mark International Human Rights Day in December 2023, and 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Listen back to the recordings with Billy Gerard Frank and Sara Shamma, and find all the information in the first Instagram post: instagram.com/p/C0mAnSuodAZThe Trembling Museum, co-curated with Manthia Diawara and Terri Geis, was at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow from 2 December 2023 to 19 May 2024.Manthia Diawara’s film, A Letter from Yene (2022), is part of The Earth, the Fire, the Water and the Winds: For a Museum of Errantry with Édouard Glissant at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo until 25 January 2026. You can join the conference on 25 and 26 November 2025.PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: ⁠⁠instagram.com/empirelinespodcast⁠⁠Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: ⁠⁠patreon.com/empirelines

23 Loka 202519min

Contemporary artist Emilija Škarnulytė snakes from the decaying control rooms of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania, to Dungeness on the English Channel, exploring time and geology through the concept of future archaeology, via their film installation, Burial (2022).Folkestone Triennial 2025 continues until 19 October 2025.From Amber to the Stars. Together with M. K. Čiurlionis: Now and Then is at National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum in Kaunas until 12 October 2025.The MUNCH Triennale, Almost Unreal, opens at MUNCH in Oslo on 15 November 2025.A major solo exhibition of Emilija’s work opens at Tate St Ives in Cornwall on 6 December 2025.PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: ⁠⁠instagram.com/empirelinespodcast⁠⁠Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: ⁠⁠patreon.com/empirelines

2 Loka 202516min

In this special episode, contemporary artists Hoa Dung Clerget and Duong Thuy Nguyen, and gallerist Sarah Le Quang Sang, join EMPIRE LINES live, exploring the legacies of French and British colonialism in East Asia, fifty years since the end of the Vietnam War, through the series, If They Survive, They are Refugees (2024).Marking 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War, Only Your Name (2025) is a group exhibition featuring works by artists of Vietnamese descent: Hoa Dung Clerget, Vicky Đỗ, and Duong Thuy Nguyen. The exhibition follows the journey of Vietnamese people migrating to the UK from 1975 onwards, preserving history through a Vietnamese lens and reflecting on the contemporary diaspora.In this special episode, recorded live at SLQS Gallery in London, gallerist Sarah Le Quang Song discusses the particular location of the exhibition, close to Hackney’s Kingsland Road, also known as the ‘Pho Mile’, where many Vietnamese families settled from the late 1970s. We discuss the title, which draws from On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019), a novel by Ocean Vuong, and the work of thinkers like Homi Bhabha and Saidiya Hartman.Duong Thuy Nguyen describes the process of making their embossed aluminium and wax sculptures, which reinterpret Joan Wakelin’s photographs of Vietnamese refugees held in Hong Kong detention centres and refugee camps, now held in the collections of the V&A in London. Hoa Dung Clerget presents installations and sculptural works that consider the labour and lives of immigrant women through Nail Art subculture, distorting stereotypical and fetishised portrayals of Asian women. Drawing on their work, Chinoiserie (2025), Hoa shares examples of orientalism in East Asian art and education systems. We explore both artists’ work with the Museum of the Home in East London, plus Vicky Đỗ’s documentary films, revisiting the history of Vietnamese refugees arriving in Hong Kong.This episode was recorded live as part of the public programme for Only Your Name, an exhibition at SLQS Gallery in London, in July 2025.For more information, visit: instagram.com/p/DLhGFqCIhNA/Womb of Fire 2025, curated by Tuong Linh, opens in Hanoi in October 2025, and tours to Ho Chi Minh City until January 2026.Interspecies Entanglements, curated by Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp, is at the SLQS Screening Room online until February 2026. Damaris Athene is at SLQS Gallery in London from 10 October 2025.For more contemporary artists working from diasporas, find out more about SEEDLINGS: Diasporic Imaginaries (2025)⁠⁠, curated by Jelena Sofronijevic with Travelling Gallery in Scotland: linktr.ee/seedlingstg2025Hear Iman Datoo and Jessica J. Lee on Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging (2024), recorded live as part of the programme for Invasion Ecology, co-curated by Jelena Sofronijevic for Radical Ecology, and Vashti Cassinelli at Southcombe Barn: pod.link/1533637675/episode/b457bcd064badcdc4dc2a2a8fde86768⁠For more about orientalism and French colonialism in North Africa, listen to contemporary artist ⁠Zineb Sedira⁠ on Dreams Have No Titles (2022-Now), recorded with Whitechapel Gallery and Goodman Gallery in London, as part of EMPIRE LINES at Venice: ⁠pod.link/1533637675/episode/N2NjZjUzYTctY2JlMS00N2JhLThjNTAtNGE3YWUwMjEwYzNlFor more about mother of pearl paintings, hear Sonia Ocaña Ruiz’s EMPIRE LINES episode about a ⁠Mexican Enconchado of the Virgin of Guadalupe (c. 1700s)⁠: ⁠pod.link/1533637675/episode/NGEyNWUwOTItNTMzOC00NDgyLWJiZjAtZmFjOWFjNTkzYmQ0PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcastSupport EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

18 Syys 202543min

BUZZWORDS is a new pilot podcast from Open City, produced in collaboration with the arts and culture podcast EMPIRE LINES. The podcast unpacks words and phrases often overused in the fields of art and architecture. Produced by curator, writer, and researcher Jelena Sofronijevic, each episode invites artists, curators, architects, and academics to consider what we really mean when we use terms like “sustainable” or “decolonised.”In this episode, Jelena speaks with artist Jasmina Cibic about the idea of “care thinking” and what it means to be both care-ful and care-less in the practice, performance, and preservation of art and cultural artefacts. Their conversation ranges from Cibic’s current exhibition The Gift Ecology at Void Art Centre in Derry, to her representation of Slovenia at the 55th Venice Biennale, exploring how care shapes her work and what we might learn from it.For more, read this article, in Contemporary Lynx: contemporarylynx.co.uk/singing-with-birds-artists-reimagine-human-avian-kinshipThe theme music is “Devotion” by Jim Hall from the Free Music Archive, licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.Subscribe to the Open City Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or iTunes. You can also listen to this episode on Resonance FM.The Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture platform and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage.The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate.To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend.PRODUCER: Jelena SofronijevicFollow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcastSupport EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

4 Syys 202529min