Issue 01 | October 2022
ISSUE 01 | OCTOBER 2022
This month Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse celebrates its fourth birthday. Since 2018 we’ve been publishing podcasts about cultural democracy and community art—sharing experiences, ideas and possibilities, to inspire like-minded people. We’ve grown from monthly to fortnightly and now weekly podcasts, in which each strand has its own distinct character.
We are celebrating our birthday by starting this monthly newsletter and revamping the website. The Miaaw Monthly will arrive in your inbox on the last Friday of each month. It will tell you what is coming next month, as well as list actions, events, publications, and broadcasts that we have found interesting and suspect you might too.
We have decided to use Buttondown as our email provider because it is a one-person operation fuelled by passion. It might take a few issues for the format and design of the newsletter to settle down as we experiment with the options and settings at our disposal. Feel free to make suggestions!
We are planning to expand our activities and The Miaaw Monthly represents the start. Next week, in time for the first of the October podcasts, we will relaunch the miaaw.net website, with a new, shiny look, with improved navigation and more to come.
In the next year we hope to expand our activities further to include a wider range of contributions from more people. If you have anything that you want to include in The Miaaw Monthly, or discuss in the podcasts, then please email us at monthly@miaaw.net and we will be happy to collaborate.
Our podcasts are a way to have good conversations about the things we care about. Please spread the word as widely as you can, and encourage people to subscribe to The Miaaw Monthly.
THIS MONTH'S PODCASTS
Every Friday a podcast appears at 12:34 UTC. Sometimes we get so eager that they appear an hour or two early to allow for any lag across the internet. Mostly they arrive on time. With that in mind, here are the podcasts that will drop in October.
Friday October 7: Meanwhile on an Abandoned Bookshelf
Music and social change: François Matarasso presents an audio essay in which he discusses the relationship between music and social change, and analyses the difference between intentions and outcomes, with what we expect art to achieve and what actually happens
Friday October 14: Genuine Inquiry
Owen Kelly and Ken Worpole ask why we always seem to need experiments in living to guide our decision-making. They discuss self-made communes and philanthropically funded garden cities.
Friday October 21: A Culture of Possibility
François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard talk with Yuriy Vulkovsky about his decades of experience working with communities and institutions in Bulgaria and nearby states.
Friday October 28: Common Practice
Sophie Hope talks with Ana Laura López de la Torre from the University of the Republic in Uraguay. She talks about the structure of the university and its relationship to the Bauhaus, and what it means for an educational institution to be democratic. The image below shows Ana Laura giving an open class on 18 August 2022 in the street by the Uruguayan Parliament, just as the right wing party voted to cut funding of public universities.
(Image courtesy of Ana Laura López de la Torre.)
LISTENING
The podcasts are available from Anchor.fm, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Overcast, RadioPublic, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Stitcher.
You can also listen to them at miaaw.net where you will find additional links, notes, and references accompanying each episode. You will also find a full archive of all the previous podcasts there.
OFF SITE
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October 5-8
Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities Autumn 2022. The programme focuses on practices that deal with the redistribution of power, wealth, and resources within the art field and society at large.
You can find out more details here. -
October 6-16
A field of flax has been grown in a Plymouth residential area tended by a multi-generational group of volunteers who have been involved in spinning, dyeing and weaving the material to make linen cloth. The mini flax farm forms a key part of an exhibition to be held at Plymouth University's Sustainability Hub from October 6 to 16.
You can find out more details here. -
Participating
Defective By Design is "a participatory and grassroots campaign exposing DRM-encumbered devices and media for what they really are: Defective by Design. We are working together to eliminate DRM as a threat to innovation in media, the privacy of readers, and freedom for computer users". The battle against DRM is not over, even though it no longer commands the front page. -
Reading
Here are two magazines that have been flying under the radar for several years. Both exist online and offline, so both are available wherever you are. Postive News act as "pioneers of ‘constructive journalism’ – a new approach in the media, which is about rigorous and relevant journalism that is focused on progress, possibility, and solutions". They publish daily online and publish Positive News magazine quarterly in print.
One of us discovered Popshot Quarterly at a bookshop at Leeds railway station over the summer. It comes in paper and online versions and, in the words on the website "is a beautifully illustrated magazine that publishes short stories, flash fiction and poetry from the literary new blood". Each issue has a theme and I read the haunting issue. It kept me occupied for two long train journeys and made me realise that I should explore the nether regions of WHSmith more often. -
Writing
Autumn White Eyes “explores being guided by the feminine and queer energies gifted to them by the moon, given to them on phases and cycles on their journey towards understanding their identities, relationships, and responsibilities as a young Native two-spirit femme”.
You can buy their poetry book Instructed By Hanwi on Etsy.