Eleanor Nairne on “What’s Changed, and What Should?” – Season 3, Episode 1

Momus: The Podcast launches Season 3 with the question “what’s changed – and what should?” with curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. This prompt was already set, but with the emerging pandemic and its irreversible effects on our economy, cultural metabolism, relationship to art, sense of agency, and connection to one other, there has never been a better time to ask it. This conversation also allows us an opportunity to reflect on past seismic shifts in history, and the equally loud cracks that can occur within an artist’s practice. How do we seize this historical moment, and what do we wish to see change?Eleanor Nairne is Curator at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, where her exhibitions include Lee Krasner: Living Colour (2019-20) and Basquiat: Boom for Real (2017-18). She is a regular catalogue writer, a contributor to publications including The London Review of Books and frieze and is a former Jerwood Writer in Residence. Prior to the Barbican she was curator of the Artangel Collection at the Tate. In speaking with Lauren Wetmore for the season’s inaugural episode, she reflects, “Has this been a time of reflection? No. It’s been a time of faulty connections and stumbling video calls. [But] I don’t want to go back to business as usual. I want to go back with a memory of this time imprinted in a valuable way.”Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, features original music by Kyle McCrea, and assistant production from Mitra Shreeram.