Son[i]a #356 Eva Rowson
- 00:01 Theory in practice
- 05:36 Reimagining hospitality
- 08:34 Invisible work, invisible workers
- 11:04 "Who's doing the washing up?"
- 12:30 Octavia Butler and maintaining a future utopia
- 14:58 The Croissant Experiment
- 20:18 Maintenance: working with Andrea Francke and Ross Jardine
- 22:08 As if the galleries just clean themselves
- 23:56 Artist, curator, manager: an ongoing creative practice
- 25:57 Creating exhibitions spaces: from Leeds to Peckham Rye
- 30:37 Room for trying things out
- 33:19 Creating safe, welcoming spaces
- 35:36 Flood
- 37:11 Unfolding an accessible, diverse Bergen Kjøtt
- 43:05 Diversity on and off stage 47:09 GRIP training ground
- 47:09 GRIP training ground
- 52:23 Open School East
- 55:08 "Wish you'd been here" with Andrea Francke
- 58:01 A space to create your own world
- 60:10 Carol Godden and FOOD, NYC
- 66:26 On being nice
- 71:33 "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction" by Ursula K. Le Guin
- 74:06 Maintaining the revolution
- 78:01 Caring takes time
In 2010, unable to find spaces to show their work in London, Eva Rowson and her partner Luke Drozd started organizing exhibitions in their flat at 38b Peckham Rye. What began as an exhibition in their emptied out living room soon became a welcoming, hospitable space that hosted shows, gigs, radio broadcasts and book fairs over the course of eight years.
Since then, Eva has been bringing some of that caring and inclusive ethos to cultural institutions such as the Lighthouse in Brighton, Bergen Kunsthall, and Bergen Kjøtt in Norway. Through a triangulation of artistic, curatorial, and managerial practice, she draws attention to the crucial internal structural work that keeps institutions going but is pushed into the background in favor of academic, intellectual work. This reimagining requires everyday maintenance, actively working for greater diversity and a focus on being “nice”: a deceptively simple concept put forward by Eva herself that calls for a broadening of the boundaries of what and who we care for. By drawing attention to unnoticed yet fundamental aspects while carefully looking at the specifics of how organizations work, Eva stubbornly challenges theory through her down-to-earth hospitality practices in order to enable possible new worlds in which to find strength.
In this podcast, Eva Rowson talks about her early contact with hospitality, collective learning experiences such as Open School East, the value of uncharismatic work, throwing parties with Andrea Francke, life lessons of a croissant, and how the best theory comes from practice.