Holding Up The Ladder

Born in Boston, Makoto Fujimura or 'Mako' the name he goes by is an artist, arts advocate, writer, thinker and filmmaker. He studied 16th & 17th century Japanese art in Japan and practices the Japane…

It’s not everyday you get to talk to artists you admire and then they turn out to be even more wonderful in person. I’ve been listening to the music of today’s guest for many years now and every time…

ADVISORY: In this episode we talk about issues of domestic and sexual violence

Welcome back to the second and final part of my conversation with South African photographer Leeroy Jason. If you haven’t…

ADVISORY: In this episode we talk about issues of domestic and sexual violence

If you’ve been listening to this podcast at all you’ll hear me talk a lot about South Africa and you’ll also know that I’…

My guest on today’s episode of Holding Up the Ladder is chef Pierre Thiam. Hailing from Dakar in Senegal, now residing in New York, Pierre is an author, restaurateur, social entrepreneur and culinary…

Some conversations are less about answers and more about the questions. Getting to ‘the why’ of an issue. And sometimes those questions, those ‘whys’ open the door to unexpected discoveries that give…

Every city has its ‘scene’ those spaces where groups of people with a similar aesthetic, value system or art discipline or music style find each other. Well in London the jazz, soul, session musician…

My guest on today’s episode of Holding Up the Ladder is art writer, curator, advisor and founder of Black British Art, Lisa Anderson.

With a background in international relations and an MA in Human Ri…

The trailer for Season 2 is here!

Episode 1, Season 2 out on Friday 16th October 2020!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What a perfect way to end the first season of Holding Up the Ladder with my guest today Dr Susan Rogers. For those of you who may not know, Susan is most famous for being Prince’s sound engineer - sh…

My happy place will always be talking to other musicians about music. Even with musicians I’m meeting for the first time, we start talking about music and by the end of our conversation, we’re firm f…

One of my rituals when I go to the cinema (remember the cinema? The place with the big screen where you sit in the dark next to lots of people and have a collective experience?) Well, when I go I lik…

Let’s talk about us- Let’s talk about who we come from, about the kind of world we want to live in and leave for future generations, the communities we want to build and how to do that. Let’s talk ab…

There are some conversations that linger - like a meal that reminds you not only of the food you ate but the people you shared it with, or a fragrance that triggers a memory - I have that with sunscr…

I have a confession to make - I don’t really understand art! I studied languages at school, but the more you learn languages you realise that you’re really only learning the basics to get by - how to…

Bonus Episode - We owe it all to the music

One of the things I love most about music isn’t just the making it, but the relationships I’ve made because of it - in fact I can’t separate the two, to me, …

This is the story of how the idea for Holding Up the Ladder came about!

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p…

If ever a discussion exemplifies why I’m so fascinated about process, the conversation you’re about to hear is it - the voice. What started as my desire to remove some of the taboos around vocal heal…

Mpho Sebina is a singer songwriter hailing from Botswana. I discovered her music through mutual friends who’d shot some of her videos. There’s something about her voice- it’s soothing, transporting, …

I like clever women, I like talking to clever women. They’re women who are curious, thinking, women who know and love themselves and because they love themselves you can hear it and see it in the wor…