EMPIRE LINES uncovers the unexpected, often two-way, flows of empires through art. Interdisciplinary thinkers use individual artworks as artefacts of imperial exchange, revealing... more
Artist and archivist Pio Abad draws out lines between Oxford, the Americas, and the Philippines, making personal connections with historic... more
Curators Ros Carter and Sofie Krogh Christensen chart Pia Arke’s photo-activism across the Arctic region, from a pinhole view to... more
Art historian and Professor Griselda Pollock traces the memories of contemporary artist women like Sutapa Biswas, one of her students... more
Artist and curator Lubaina Himid unravels entangled histories of transatlantic slavery and textile production, across continents, and Britain’s museum collections,... more
Decolonial thinker Professor Paul Gilroy joins EMPIRE LINES live in Plymouth, to chart thirty years since the publication of The... more
Artist Serge Attukwei Clottey joins EMPIRE LINES live at the Eden Project in Cornwall, to discuss Afrogallonism, uplifting communities with... more
Artist - and winner of Artes Mundi 10 - Taloi Havini mines connections between extractive industries in the Pacific Islands,... more
Jamie Ruers, Mariano Ben Plotkin, and Mariano Ruperthuz Honorato, from the Freud Museum in London, reinterpret psychoanalysis through 20th century... more
Jana Manuelpillai revisits the Madras College of Arts and Crafts, the first British colonial art school set up in India, through... more
Interdisciplinary artist Osman Yousefzada crafts stories of working-class migration experiences, unwrapping the influence of his mother and many other textile... more
Curators Hannah Hooks and Misha Curson connect global environments and food practices, from guerrilla gardeners in the Democratic Republic of... more
Curator Matthew Barrington marks 220 years since the Haitian Revolution, the only successful slave uprising, unreeling how resistance continues with... more
Photographer Armet Francis documents African diasporic cultures across ‘The Black Triangle’, and captures the co-founding of the Association of Black... more
Writer and musician Kalaf Epalanga moves between Angola, Portugal, and Brazil, sounding out colonial histories and contemporary migrant experiences through... more
Contemporary artist Maha Ahmed reconnects Asian art forms along the Silk Road, migrating between traditional Mughal and Persian miniature paintings,... more
For EMPIRE LINES’ 100th episode, we join artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah to journey the Columbian Exchange, connecting continents from... more
Curator Alice Wilke transports from Switzerland to sub-Saharan cities in Africa, tracing Carnival traditions across continents, via Carrie Mae Weems’... more
Curator Hammad Nasar expands ideas of miniature painting, moving around South Asia and Western Europe from the 17th century to... more
Photographer Hélène Amouzou, and curator Bindi Vora, capture the in/visibility of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe, moving between 21st... more
Curator and filmmaker Ashish Ghadiali connects climate science, contemporary art, and activism, cultivating a radical, cultural ecology in the countryside... more
Curator Dorothy Price outlines the figures of Claudette Johnson, a founder member of the Black British Art Movement (Blk Art... more
Contemporary artist Barby Asante moves through the London Transport Museum to Stratford Station, coming together with Black women TfL staff... more
Artist and curator Tony Albert collects Aboriginalia, colonial kitsch still found in Australia’s second-hand and souvenir shops, to reconstruct historic... more
Curator Eleanor Nairne traces the migrations of contemporary artist Julianknxx, as he travels between European port cities, and back to... more
Contemporary artist Elsa James moves through the Museum of London Docklands’ London, Sugar & Slavery gallery - and so, the missing... more
Curators Jake Subryan Richards and Vicky Avery locate Cambridge within the transatlantic slave trade, connecting global commodities and local consumption,... more
Curator Rachel Dedman unpicks the personal and political histories woven into Palestinian textiles, the role of the ‘embroidered woman’ in... more
Writer and photographer Johny Pitts captures everyday experiences from Black communities around the British coast, bringing together the sights, sounds,... more
Multimedia artist and activist Imani Jacqueline Brown maps out the long history of extractivism in southern America, constellating 18th century... more
Curator Folakunle Oshun links Peckham in the UK, and Lagos in Nigeria, with water and two centuries of shared colonial... more
In this bonus episode, brought to you with historicity Tokyo, Japan House London curator Hiro Sugiyama, and contemporary artists Tsuzuki... more
Photographer Gregor Sailer exposes the neo-imperial scramble for resources in the Arctic Circle and the Polar Silk Road, with stills... more
Artist Nil Yalter, a pioneer in 20th century video and multimedia installations, explores the often challenging experience of being an... more
Curators Osei Bonsu, Jess Baxter, and Genevieve Barton cross the diverse landscapes, borders, and generations of contemporary African photography, exposing... more
Curator Florence Ostende visualises how violence against African Americans has been perpetuated throughout history, and challenged with contemporary art, by... more
Curator Morad Montazami assembles the revolutionary artist-professors and students of the Casablanca Art School who constructed the post-colonial state of... more
Artist Shahrzad Ghaffari replies to orientalism in the Arts & Crafts Movement, William De Morgan’s Arab Hall, and the new... more
Curator Najlaa El-Ageli explores how Colonel Muammar Gaddafi colonised Libya’s character and identity from the 1960s to its post-Arab Spring... more
Nienke Bakker, curator at the Van Gogh Museum, unpacks how the artist encountered Japan in Europe, and how woodblock prints... more
Curator Isabella Maidment steps into Hurvin Anderson’s studio and barbershop, a point of cultural connection between Birmingham and the Caribbean,... more
Curators Shereen Lafhaj and Makiya Davis-Bramble unwrap the underrepresented history of Indian indenture in the British Caribbean in the 19th... more
Artist Musquiqui Chihying brushes up the history of displaying sick and strong Asian bodies, from the Formosa Hamlet or human... more
Tate Modern curator Nabila Abdel Nabi plants European abstract art in transnational networks of spirituality and theosophy, through Hilma af... more
Raina Lampkins-Felder, Curator at the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, weaves together the histories of Black artists who stayed in Southern... more
We return to Nalini Malani’s immersive installation My Reality is Different as it iterates in London, where curator Priyesh Mistry... more
Winnie Sze and Pim Arts, curators at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in the Netherlands, carve out the connections... more
Design Museum curator Rachel Hajek makes sense of Ai Weiwei’s ‘fields’ of found objects, from ancient Chinese porcelain to Lego... more
Professors Miriam Leonard and Daniel Orrells, curators at the Freud Museum London, dig into the Austrian’s collection of ancient objects,... more
Could the state of state-lessness mean a more continental, inclusive sense of belonging? The contemporary Southeast and East Asian artists... more
Rijksmuseum curator Valika Smeulders polishes and personalises our understanding of the Dutch Golden Age, from their joint exhibition with the... more
Japan House London curator Hashimoto Mari and translator Eyre Kurasawa unravel kumihimo, the ancient craft of Japanese silk braiding, and... more
Curator Barnaby Wright transports us from the Courtauld Gallery in London, to the Caribbean island of Trinidad, as seen -... more
We're back offline, and inside Banned., a new exhibition blending archive and present-day photography at the Turner Contemporary in Margate.... more
EMPIRE LINES uncovers the unexpected, often two-way, flows of empires through art. Interdisciplinary thinkers use individual artworks as artefacts of imperial... more
Dr. Sarah Longair unseats European powers' efforts to control the East African coast, through a Kiti Cha Enzi, or Swahili... more
Dr. Chris Spring tears up stereotypes of African textiles, through Araminta de Clermont's 2010 photograph, Thabo, Thabiso and Blackx. Three young... more
We're back offline, and in the artist's bedroom at Van Gogh House in London, as Vaishnavi Mohan pins down Harold... more
Deborah Lee-Talbot exposes the political agency of Indigenous women in British New Guinea, through a photograph of the Papuan Geua,... more
Dr. Helen Paul bursts the South Sea Bubble, tracing the triangular trade of slavery between London and Britain's colonies in... more
James Marriott traces the flows of Britain's global oil empire in the 20th century, from a village in Nigeria to... more
We're back offline, and into the deep black exhibition space of Bath's Holburne Museum, where artist Nalini Malani coats fresh... more
Dr. Michele Lamprakos reconstructs the imperial flows of Islamic and Byzantine architecture from 8th century Spain, through the Mosque-Cathedral of... more
Dr. Peter Good traces the flows of Persian wine culture through precolonial India into Europe in the 17th and 18th... more
We're celebrating fifty episodes of EMPIRE LINES, with three specials recorded offline and in the museum space – this time... more
We're celebrating fifty episodes of EMPIRE LINES, with three specials recorded offline and in the museum space – this time... more
We're celebrating fifty episodes of EMPIRE LINES, with three specials recorded offline and in the museum space – this time... more
Dr. Sonal Khullar sounds out how the Long Partition shapes Indian and Pakistani identities, through Bani Abidi's 2016 audio installation,... more
Dr. Nalini Iyer rereads South Indian and diasporic experiences of Partition, through Balachandra Rajan's 1958 novel, The Dark Dancer. Born in... more
Dr. Piotr Puchalski depicts interwar Poland's imperial aspirations, through the Maritime and Colonial League's 1938 poster, Colonial Days: We Demand... more
Hooda Shawa rewrites the fairytales in England's 18th century country houses, exposing the Indian and Palestinian foundations of Derbyshire's Kedleston... more
Dr. Stephanie Porras carves out the Chinese connection between Spain's colonies in Mexico City and Manila in the Philippines, in... more
Dr. Jared Hardesty picks up the party debris littered by New England's illegal imperialists, via John Greenwood's 1750s painting, Sea... more
Dr. Caitlin Harvey maps out land transfers from Indigenous communities to European education institutions, through an 1873 Map of New... more
Dr. Saygin Salgirli mines the hidden link between four early modern empires, in a 17th century Painting of Silver Labourers... more
Aisha Hussain plays out tropes of Ottoman Turks in English Orientalist theatre, in two 17th century productions of The Tragedy... more
For EMPIRE LINES’ 40th episode, Professor Craig Clunas dials in from London’s Freud Museum to tell me about curating their... more
Anna Ghadar turns back against colonial archives of Native American peoples, via Fred Wilson's 1992 exhibition at the Maryland Historical... more
Dr. Jeanne Morgan Zarucchi fires up legacies of British colonialism in contemporary American consumption, through Johnson Brothers' Old Britain Castles... more
Dr. Tim Murray smashes imperial stereotypes of Asia through tastes and trades, in a 19th century Standard Willow Ceramic Plate... more
A. A. Bastian navigates the commercial and Christian aspirations of Euro-American trading empires in 19th century Asia, through a Water... more
For EMPIRE LINES’ 40th episode, Professor Craig Clunas dials in from London’s Freud Museum to tell me about curating their latest exhibition,... more