Raw Material

Raw Material

Raw Material is an arts and culture podcast from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Each season focuses on a different topic, featuring voices of artists working in all media and exploring the inspiration and stories behind modern and contemporary art.

Episodes

May 9, 2023 6 mins
As an epilogue for the Raw Material: Disability Visibility Mixtape, we’re honored to share an audio piece by this season's podcaster-in-residence Alice Wong. The story first aired on KQED Perspectives, a show that features opinions from folks living in the Bay Area. If you haven’t already, check them out at kqed.org/perspectives. Thank you for listening and learning with us this season. Full episode transcript available below: ...
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In this episode Alice Wong introduces us to Amanda Cachia, an independent curator and critic whose work focuses on contemporary art, activism, and disability language in visual culture. Episode Artwork by: Jen White-Johnson (www.jenwhitejohnson.com) Full episode transcript available below: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yz6gvmvR623muzyvxbkgHyMyJpYuvPyYHSQ4mu7Qhz4/edit?usp=sharing
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April 11, 2023 36 mins
In this episode Alice Wong introduces us to Finnegan Shannon, a multidisciplinary artist making work about disability culture and access. Episode Artwork by: Jen White-Johnson (www.jenwhitejohnson.com) Full episode transcript available below: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b5mnmutrmxGUAci1nSxkQT1y6o--8dZ4HX6Eypzc6yY/edit?usp=sharing
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In this episode Alice Wong introduces us to Lindsey D. Felt and Vanessa Chang, curators who collaborated on the multidisciplinary art exhibition "Recoding CripTech". Episode Artwork by: Jen White-Johnson (www.jenwhitejohnson.com) Full episode transcript available below: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rW9gUlWx_jbxLV7aRTBimrIyoCbfCFY9NvoBiGfBxRI/edit?usp=sharing
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March 14, 2023 33 mins
In this episode Alice Wong introduces us to Jeff Thomas, an urban Iroquois photographer, researcher, public speaker, and curator. Episode Artwork by: Jen White-Johnson (www.jenwhitejohnson.com) Full episode transcript available below: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13hGXKXo1tJokHHKtpobdaHdJBG03eb0D-fL_-EAFm38/edit?usp=sharing
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February 28, 2023 32 mins
In this episode Alice Wong introduces us to India Harville, an African American queer disabled femme dancer, somatic bodyworker, activist, and educator. Episode Artwork by: Jen White-Johnson (www.jenwhitejohnson.com) Full episode transcript available below: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TlOETTK70geysFM9MpBmYLmQ1ADhCF825M_6DZFC-Ws/edit?usp=share_link
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Raw Material is excited to share The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine – Volume I with our listening audience — because we know how much you love ART about ART! Local writers Olivia Peña and Josiah Luis Alderete interweave their perspectives on the history of the Mission Muralismo movement with stories from the muralists themselves. This zine expands storytelling related to SFMOMA’s Summer 2022 exhibition Diego Rivera’s America, cent...
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In Episode 7, Babette reconnects with EJ, and we hear her loud and clear. Babette talks with KQED’s Pendarvis Harshaw + former Oakland head librarian Dorothy Lazard about what makes Oakland soulful. NIAD artists Deatra Colbert and Halisi Noel-Johnson tell us about being Black and legendary. Featured: Deatra Colbert, Nan Collymore, Susan Goldman, Pendarvis Harshaw, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Halisi Noel-Johnson, Dorothy Lazard, Evange...
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In Episode 6, Babette is welcomed into the home of artist Mildred Howard. Twice. Listen to Mildred speak about letting her materials inform her, reflecting light through glass bottles, and giving Black women their flowers. Featured: Elizabeth Catlett, Mildred Howard, Evangeline Montgomery, Betye Saar, and Babette Thomas. Cover art: Evangeline's Garden by Jeanna Penn @jinamae
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In Episode 5, Babette connects with artist Cheryl Fabio to discuss the work, impact, and foresight of her mother, poet and activist Sarah Webster Fabio. Rapper and fellow writer Nappy Nina reflects on the role of community in building an art career and practice. Featured: Cheryl Fabio, Sarah Webster Fabio, Evangeline Montgomery, Nappy Nina, and Babette Thomas. Cover art: Evangeline's Garden by Jeanna Penn @jinamae
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In Episode 4 of Visions of Black Futurity, Babette shares an update on their search for Evangeline. Plus, we hear two episodes of Rightnowish hosted by Pendarvis Harshaw, exploring what it looks like to build liberated Black spaces in the Bay Area. Featured: Deanna Van Buren, Pendarvis Harshaw, Tajai Massey, Evangeline Montgomery, and Babette Thomas. Cover art: Evangeline's Garden by Jeanna Penn @jinamae
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In Episode 3, Babette tries to answer the question, “Where will we host our Black art spaces of the future?” In the woods, by the ocean, or in a city center? They turn to artists who deal with matters of space, place, and land: Octavia Butler, Richard Mayhew, and Bay Area artist Sage Stargate. Follow us, as we trace the footsteps our ancestors have left behind. Featured: Richard Mayhew, Evangeline Montgomery, Bí Oke, Sage Stargate...
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In Episode 2 of Visions of Black Futurity, Babette visits a museum with no walls: the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Museum in Joshua Tree, CA. Purifoy tells us what led him to the desert and Cauleen Smith creates a Black, feminist utopia in the spaces he built. Even our dreams have rhythm, let’s go together, moving through time + space — funkin to the beat of “One.” Interview of Noah Purifoy provided by the Center for Oral History R...
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In Episode 1 of Visions of Black Futurity, Babette Thomas takes us on a journey through time. We travel to a 1968 Black arts exhibition in Oakland, California, called New Perspectives in Black Art. It was the first of its kind in the country and, in this episode, we meet the woman behind it all, a Black artist and curator named Evangeline "EJ" Montgomery. Featured: Etta Moten Barnett, Dewey Crumpler, Zora Neale Hurston, Evangeline...
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Babette sets the sonic table for Season 7 of Raw Material with a playlist of songs inspired by the ethos of the Black Bay Area during the 1960s and 1970s. Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3pfCBgY Featured: Evangeline Montgomery, and Babette Thomas Cover art: Evangeline's Garden by Jeanna Penn @jinamae
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Call 415-915-1784. Cover art: Evangeline's Garden by Jeanna Penn @jinamae
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August 10, 2020 55 mins
The art of postwar German artist Anselm Kiefer and the poetry of Holocaust survivor Paul Celan are both layered, dense, and hard to read. Sometimes the best starting point is through the layered, dense, and idiosyncratic ways that an individual processes trauma. So grab a spelunking hardhat and together we'll mine these layers of metaphor and materials, texture and text, golden straw and blackened ash, that comprise the unimaginab...
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August 3, 2020 23 mins
This episode talks about a number of pieces by Alexander Calder. Calder is most well known for his mobiles, giant hanging pieces that move subtly with the currents in the room. This episode was produced by Accession. More episodes at accession.fm.
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August 3, 2020 14 mins
Roxane Gay reflects on Kara Walker's Christ's Entry into Journalism (2017). The Way I See It, "Roxane Gay and Kara Walker's Christ's Entry into Journalism" was produced by the BBC in association with the Museum of Modern Art New York. More episodes at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009bf6.
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August 3, 2020 22 mins
The best-selling novelist and essayist, Olivia Laing explores the influential abstract artist Agnes Martin (1912-2004). Martin – a gay, working class woman who forged a path in a male-dominated art world – embraced solitude and didn’t have her first solo show until she was 46. This episode was produced by Reduced Listening © Frieze. More episodes at frieze.com/article/bow-down-podcast-women-art-history.
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