Nico Heller in Conversation with the artist André Stitt. This episode of Annotations features André Stitt, an artist whose life and work have been profoundly shaped by the Northern Ireland Troubles. The dialogue explores the intersection of materiality, social dynamics, and identity in contemporary human experience - central themes in André's work. We examine how physical structures and the built environment shape personal and communal narratives, reflecting on André's investigation of trauma, s...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 41 min
Nico Heller in Conversation with Performance Artist Brian Patterson. In the crucible of Northern Ireland's complex cultural landscape, live art has, over the past 50 years, emerged as a powerful medium of engagement, critique, and healing. This dialogue examines the growth of artist-led initiatives that have shaped the landscape of contemporary performance art in Northern Ireland and beyond. We talk about the challenges and transformative impact of sustaining a live art practice over time, the i...
Jul 16, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Nico Heller in Conversation with the Taiwanese Curator Erica Yu-Wen Huang. This episode tackles the pressing challenges facing politically engaged artists and curators in an era of eroding artistic freedoms. We explore how the global rise of illiberalism reshapes creative expression, resistance, and critical practice. And we dissect the evolving relationships between art, politics, and audience engagement, offering insights into navigating these turbulent waters. The dialogue confronts the big q...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Nico Heller in Conversation with Lou Mo. Lou Mo is a leading Taipei-based artist and curator, specialising in her curatorial practice in contemporary Asian and African art. She read Art History at McGill University (2009-2013), graduating with a BA, and later studied Chinese Art in the Asian Studies division of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris (2014-2017). In 2022 Lou was selected as one of four guest curators of the 14th Dakar Bienniale in Senegal (2022) and in 2023-24 ...
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Nico Andreas Heller in Conversation with Iman Aoun. In a region where narratives often clash, Iman Aoun's artistic voice resonates as a beacon of creative resilience. The award-winning Palestinian actress, director, and co-founder of Ashtar Theatre in Ramallah since 1991, Iman has harnessed the techniques of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. Her pioneering work sheds light on the suffering and plight of Palestinians under occupation and in exile through critically acclaimed projects such ...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 23 min
Nico Andreas Heller in Conversation with Yvon Ngassam. Yvon Ngassam, based in Douala, Cameroon, combines traditional and contemporary media to explore urban transformation and to confront the enduring legacies of slavery, colonial history, displacement and migration. Employing a wide range of techniques, from photography, video and sound, to conceptual, live and digital art, he examines these themes from the perspective of resilience and through the prism of dreams, envisioning alternative narra...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Nico Andreas Heller in Conversation with Stefan Kaegi. Over the years, Stefan Kaegi’s work has been variously described as documentary, participatory, experimental and postdramatic. In this podcast we talk about his unique approach and practice as a theatre director and work with Remini Protokoll, the Berlin-based collective he cofounded in early 2000 together with Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel. Born and raised in Switzerland, he studied philosophy in Basel, art in Zurich and theatre in Gießen ...
Mar 05, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Nico Andreas Heller in Conversation with Valérie Osouf. Valérie Osouf is a French documentary film maker and artist, and a leading voice in the migrant rights and social justice movement internationally. She is currently working on a feature-length international documentary on human mobility, traversing five countries (UAE, Russia, Rwanda, China, and Canada) and in November will be shooting a nocturnal urban motorbike film in Kigali. Whilst she has frequently crossed over into fine art practice,...
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Nico Andreas Heller in Conversation with Lenka Petrakova. Lenka’s futuristic designs are inspired by her study and love of nature. Improvements in technology, digital design, AI integration and material developments enable her to design organic structures, often on an epic scale, that promote community, are sustainable and operationally highly efficient. Beauty in architecture, as in nature, she maintains, is not a goal in itself, but the manifestation of a well-functioning organism. Is this whe...
Feb 06, 2024•56 min
Nico Andreas Heller in Conversation with Keith McVeigh. Hugo Ball, co-founder of the Dada movement, once remarked that “every word that was spoken and sung [at Cabaret Voltaire, their club in Zurich] represented at least this one thing: that this humiliating age had not succeeded in winning [their] respect”. That was back in 1916, at the height of the first world war. For Ball art was not an end in itself, but an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in. The Dada...
Nov 21, 2023•50 min
Nico Andreas Heller in Conversation with Sean McAllister. Sean McAllister is one of the most distinctive British film makers working today. His multi-award-winning films for the BBC and Channel 4 TV have played all over the world. His successes include the Sundance Film Festival winning films, The Liberace Of Baghdad (2004), Japan: A Story Of Love And Hate (2008) and The Reluctant Revolutionary, and the Sheffield Jury Prize winning A Syrian Love Story (2015), which was screened in both the UK an...
Nov 08, 2023•58 min
Nico Andreas Heller in Conversation with Dougald Hine. Without a conscious commitment to a different, a more sustainable, ideally regenerative way of living – I would call it a ‘cultural revolution’, if the term didn’t carry such negative connotations – the transformation of our economies and the renewal of our democracies and societies won’t happen. Annotations, my new dialogue series addresses this issue and hence focuses, not on what people do, but on how they do it, and why. Since I deeply b...
Oct 27, 2023•1 hr 8 min
