Son[i]a
Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil
In this podcast, Mixe linguist, writer and activist Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil unpacks the complexities of being Mixe in Mexico and talks about the cracks that appear in an imposed identity. She dismantles the category of “indigenous” as an external, political label, claiming the right to specificity in naming herself: the right to be Mixe. She also objects to the essentialism and folklorism that seek to reduce being and speech. She turns her attention to the power of small structures, to multilingualism, to a defense of the territory, and to maize as a social ecosystem.
Adam Broomberg
Born in apartheid-era Johannesburg to a Jewish family, descended from Holocaust survivors, Adam Broomberg's trajectory spans teenage anti-apartheid activism, years embedded in global conflict zones, and commercial collaborations that later became subjects of critique. Across this arc, his work has evolved into a sustained inquiry into power: his own positionality, the complicities of photography, and its potential to be repurposed as a tool for change. In this conversation, the artist and educator traces his own path through images, complicities, and refusals. He reflects on the toxicity of photography, how he engaged with its reproduction and refusal – through projects with large-format cameras, archival excavations, and counter-surveillance.
Marilyn Boror Bor
In this conversation, we talk with Maya-Kaqchikel artist and activist Marilyn Boror Bor about languages, textiles, relationality, extractivism, and cement. She tells us about the slow violence of processes of assimilation, about the importance of the Mayan language and culture, and of how colonisation has demonised ancestral knowledge. She recounts what it means to live in a land perforated by a cement factory, where water scarcity becomes the norm and mountains are drilled until they lose their spirit. Hence the urgency of the connection to the land and indigenous struggles, which are not new, but have always existed: a millennial memory that still breathes.
Mikaelah Drullard
In this podcast, Mikaelah Drullard dismantles the clichés of Western progressivism and reminds us that the plantation has not gone away. With words that cut like machetes, she shows how human rights are still the key to a house that only white bodies can enter. Against the impunity of a livestreamed genocide, Mikaelah takes up a radical gesture of decolonisation: the rejection of humanity itself. She also criticises white feminism, whose promise of equality breaks down when skin is in the game, and she draws on insurgent genealogies that invent other ways of living.
Mobile Radio
Agitators by nature, Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann's radio practice involves the activation of ephemeral radio stations that emerge from a mix of technical skills and knowledge, their desire to keep trying new things and testing the medium, and their capacity to bring out the best in the local communities that host them. In this podcast, they talk about their approach to radio through the various spaces they have activated over the years: from workshops to major projects such as the studio at the São Paolo Biennial, Radio Revolten: 30 Days of Radio Art in Halle, and the 100-day Radio Art Zone. They also talk about smaller projects, such as their improvisation duo, Tonic Train, which encapsulates their idea of artistic practice –and life– as something dirty and leaky, in the best sense of the words.