On 13 March 2023, the Arts & Society Forum invited Miriam Elia and Manick Govinda to discuss how Miriam develops her ideas as an artist and how she has managed to make a success of her art, in a competitive and sometimes hostile world. They covered broader issues, including what it means to challenge contemporary orthodoxies and ‘groupthink’, and how artists can survive the culture wars.
Miriam is a conceptual artist, whose diverse work includes short films, animations, illustrated books, prints, drawings and surreal radio writing. She is best known for her art books – including We Go To The Gallery, in which the classic Peter and Jane Ladybird book characters grapple with conceptual art, and We Do Lockdown, where children are forcibly adapted to the ‘new normal’, where a joyless existence is heroically embraced to save humanity.
Manick Govinda is co-curator of Culture Tensions debates at Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Poland. In a long and successful career as an arts consultant, mentor and curator, he has been an outspoken defender of freedom of expression and critic in the culture war. Manick is curating Miriam’s solo exhibition at Ujazdowski Castle, launching on 24 March.
#LockdownDebates: Can we cancel ’cancel culture’?
#Arts&SocietyForum: Gabriella Swallow on JS Bach and Helmut Lachenmann
#SocialPolicyForum: Behind the NHS frontline
#EconomyForum: The Covid-19 global economy - from Italy to South Africa
Book Launch: Why borders matter, with Professor Frank Furedi
#Arts&SocietyForum: Gericault, Picasso and the art of composition
#Arts&SocietyForum: Morality and hell - the power of Dante’s Inferno
#EducationForum: After toppling statues, is it time to rewrite the curriculum?
#LockdownDebates: From furlough to mask-wearing: can we ever return to normal?
#BookClub: Burning books and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
#LockdownDebates: How innovation works, with Matt Ridley
#SportscastOfIdeas: Sporting life beyond lockdown
#LockdownDebates: Has the NHS had a good crisis?
#Arts&SocietyForum: The shock of the old in Steven Berkoff’s ‘Greek’
#BookClub: Sally Rooney’s Normal People and the triumph of intimacy
#EconomyForum: The oil industry in times of Corona
#EducationForum: Can we go back to school?
#BookClub: When art imitates life - Albert Camus’ The Plague in lockdown
#LockdownDebates: What does George Floyd’s killing mean for British society?
#LockdownDebates: Morality during a pandemic, with Susan Neiman and Frank Furedi
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