PODCAST · society
EMPIRE LINES
by EMPIRE LINES
EMPIRE LINES uncovers the unexpected, often two-way, flows of empires through art.Interdisciplinary thinkers use individual artworks as artefacts of imperial exchange, revealing the how and why of the monolith ‘empire’.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelinesTRANSCRIPTS: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-pwfn4U_P1o2oT2Zfb7CoCWadZ3-pO4C?usp=sharingMUSIC: Combinación // The DubbstylePRODUCER: Jelena SofronijevicEMPIRE LINES is a project within the ecosystem of Radical Ecology (2026-2027).
Episodes
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The Jewelers of the Ummah, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (2024, 2026) (EMPIRE LINES x Shed Publishing, House of European History)
In this special episode, author, filmmaker, and jewellery-maker Ariella Aïsha Azoulay details shared, intertwined histories of Jewish and Muslim life in Algeria and North Africa, and how they have been fractured through French colonialism and Zionism, in their book, The Jewelers of the Ummah: A...
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Electricity, Asad Raza (2026) (EMPIRE LINES x E-WERK Luckenwalde)
Contemporary artist Asad Raza performs within the industrial infrastructures and ecologies of East Germany, conducting the development of electricity from Ancient Greece through the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR) in the 20th century, via the dramaturgy and...
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Pasqyra e Lëndës (Sommarium), Erdiola Kanda Mustafaj (2025-Now) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Summit Photo 2026)
In this special episode, contemporary artist Erdiola Kanda Mustafaj joins EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss memory, displacement and the politics of image-making in Albania and the Western Balkans, through their ongoing photography project, Pasqyra e Lëndës (Sommarium, or 'mirror of matter'). This...
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Tomorrow, again, Mona Benyamin (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Triangle-Astérides, Jaou Tunis 2026)
Curator and translator Line Ajan observes time, language, and humour as an aesthetic, political, and coping strategy in Palestinian collective experiences, reviewing the traumas of the Nakba and Israeli settler colonialism throughout Mona Benyamin’s artistic practice, and video, Tomorrow, again...
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ZED LOVE, Libita Sibungu (2026) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange)
In this special episode, contemporary artist Libita Sibungu joins EMPIRE LINES live, to explore the layers, energies, and geologies that connect people to place, and African diasporic, mixed and multi-racial, and working-class experiences in Cornwall, through their installation, ZED LOVE (2026)....
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A Cutting: Songs of the Water, Kaajal Modi (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at the Eden Project, Cornwall, If Trees Could Talk 2026)
Find out more about Kaajal Modi’s collaborative work with audio, oral storytelling, and cultural preservation, through Arts of Noticing, an independent symposium in Leeds, as part of If Trees Could Talk International Art Biennale 2026. The event, including Bo Olawoye, Joanne Armitage, Kaajal...
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The Deployment of Art, Clare Carolin (2026) (EMPIRE LINES Live at King’s College London)
In this special episode, author and contemporary art historian Clare Carolin joins EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss the British government’s deployment of art as an instrument of war in the North of Ireland and the Falklands (Malvinas) in the 20th century, and their research in the archives and...
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Elevation (Chiltan), Suleman Aqeel Khilji (2025-2026) (EMPIRE LINES x White Cube Paris)
Contemporary artist Suleman Aqeel Khilji recollects the landscapes of Balochistan, a mountainous region spanning present-stay Pakistan and Iran, and the influence of Urdu language and literatures on his painting practice, through Elevation (Chiltan) (2025-2026). Inside the White Cube: Suleman…
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The Venice Lagoon, a legal person, Giovanni Pellegrini (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Ocean Space, Venice Biennale 2026)
Researcher, artist, and curator Pietro Consolandi traces the ‘wetland turn’ in art, ecology, and environmental justice, via Giovanni Pellegrini’s 2025 documentary film, The Venice Lagoon, a legal person. Nature Speaks: Listening for Rights of Nature in Venice and Europe is at Ocean Space in…
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Nobody Told Me Rivers Dream, Superflux (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Klima Biennale Wien 2026)
Festival director Sithara Pathirana considers climate justice and public space in Europe, tracing the rights of the river Danube through Austria, Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, via the Klima Biennale Wien (2026). Klima Biennale Wien 2026: Unspeakable Worlds continues in Vienna until…
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The Erasure of Palestine, Ahmad Al-Bazz (2026) (EMPIRE LINES x MuseumsEtc, Ibraaz)
Journalist, photographer, and filmmaker Ahmad Al-Bazz captures the depopulation and destruction of Palestinian villages and towns, and the continuation of colonial histories into the present, through their photography book, The Erasure of Palestine (2026). The Erasure of Palestine by Ahmad…
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Human Being and Animals, Karel Appel (1949) (EMPIRE LINES x Galerie Max Hetzler)
Curator Franz W. Kaiser considers the avant-garde paintings of Karel Appel, in relation to the historic CoBrA Movement and contemporary ecologies, via Human Being and Animals (1949). Karel Appel: Variations on a Theme is at Galerie Max Hetzler in London until 16 April 2026. Karel Appel’s Hip…
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The Thing About Making Rocks, Sovay Berriman (2026), with Marie-Anne McQuay (EMPIRE LINES Live at Flamm 2026, Liverpool Biennial 2025)
In this special episode, artist Sovay Berriman and curator Marie-Anne McQuay join EMPIRE LINES live, to unearth histories of extractivism in Cornwall and Liverpool, and the relations between colonialism, clay, copper, and tin mining, tourism, and cultural identity, through The Thing About Making...
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Revolutionary Roads. Destination: Comradeship, with Ahmet Öğüt (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Moderna galerija, Art on the Underground)
In this episode, conceptual artist Ahmet Öğüt travels by train through Ottoman Turkey, the former Yugoslavia and Western Balkans, to the London Underground, navigating histories and contemporary expressions of solidarity via the 2025 programme, Revolutionary Roads. Destination: Comradeship....
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I Am a Man and a Brother (2021-Now), with Chris Day and Gabriella Gay (EMPIRE LINES Live at V&A Wedgwood)
In this special episode, glass artist Chris Day and poet and creative producer Gabriella Gay join EMPIRE LINES live, to reflect on the complex histories of the Wedgwood Anti-Slavery Medallion, and the relationships between colonialism, abolitionism, and ceramics in the Midlands, through the...
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Hidden Histories, with Wormcasts, from the Chelsea Physic Garden
Wormcasts is a podcast from Chelsea Physic Garden, created by the Young Producers – a group of 16 – 24 year olds working to engage more young people with the garden. This series explores the global histories of botanic gardens, deceptive plants, working in the garden, and plants in the context of...
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The Foreign Invention of British Art, Leslie Primo (2025), with Miranda Kaufmann (EMPIRE LINES Live at the National Gallery, London)
In this special episode, authors and historians Leslie Primo and Miranda Kaufmann join EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss migration, national identity, and the many heritages of Britain’s best-known artworks, drawing from the collections of the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery in London....
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The Water Diviners, Jumana Emil Abboud (2020-) (EMPIRE LINES x Mostyn, Artes Mundi 11)
Contemporary artist Jumana Emil Abboud respirits water sources from Palestine to Wales, drawing on folklore, oral storytelling, and memories of dispossession and resistance, in her ongoing series of collaborative workshops and performances, The Water Diviners (2020-). Jumana Emil Abboud’s...
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Every Monument Will Fall, Dan Hicks (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Common Ground, Oxford)
In this special episode, author, curator, and archaeologist Dan Hicks joins EMPIRE LINES live, to trace the origins of contemporary conflicts over art, history, memory, and colonialism, through their book, Every Monument Will Fall (2025). This episode was recorded live at Curio at Common Ground…
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Introducing: Wormcasts, from the Chelsea Physic Garden
Wormcasts is a podcast from Chelsea Physic Garden, created by the Young Producers – a group of 16 – 24 year olds working to engage more young people with the garden. This series explores the global histories of botanic gardens, deceptive plants, working in the garden, and plants in the context of...
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Colorless Green Freedoms Sleep Furiously, Miloš Trakilović (2023), with Jelena Visković (EMPIRE LINES Live at Forma, Artists' Film International 2025)
In this special episode, contemporary artists and filmmakers Miloš Trakilović and Jelena Visković join EMPIRE LINES live, exloring narratives of war, displacement, and visual cultures in the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, through the video essay, Colorless Green Freedoms Sleep Furiously...
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Voiceless Mass, Raven Chacon and Scottish Ensemble (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Fruitmarket, Edinburgh Art Festival 2025)
Composer and artist Raven Chacon amplifies the Catholic Church’s complicity in the suppression of Indigenous people in the Americas, through their composition for organ, Voiceless Mass (2021). Raven Chacon’s Voiceless Mass was performed at St. Giles’ Cathedral in August 2025, as part of Edinburgh...
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The Trembling Museum, Manthia Diawara and Terri Geis (2023-2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at PEACE FREQUENCIES)
In this special episode, filmmaker, cultural theorist, and curator Manthia Diawara joins EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss Édouard Glissant’s relations with natural environmental disasters, connecting the islands of the Caribbean and Scotland, through the exhibition, The Trembling Museum (2023-2024)....
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Burial, Emilija Škarnulytė (2022) (EMPIRE LINES x Folkestone Triennial 2025, Tate St Ives)
Contemporary artist Emilija Škarnulytė snakes from the decaying control rooms of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania, to Dungeness on the English Channel, exploring time and geology through the concept of future archaeology, via their film installation, Burial (2022). Folkestone…
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If They Survive, They are Refugees, Duong Thuy Nguyen (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at SLQS Gallery)
In this special episode, contemporary artists Hoa Dung Clerget and Duong Thuy Nguyen, and gallerist Sarah Le Quang Sang, join EMPIRE LINES live, exploring the legacies of French and British colonialism in East Asia, fifty years since the end of the Vietnam War, through the series, If They…
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Introducing: BUZZWORDS: Care with Jasmina Cibic
BUZZWORDS is a new pilot podcast from Open City, produced in collaboration with the arts and culture podcast EMPIRE LINES. The podcast unpacks words and phrases often overused in the fields of art and architecture. Produced by curator, writer, and researcher Jelena Sofronijevic, each episode...
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It Should Not Be Forgotten, Elsa James (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Firstsite Colchester)
In this special episode, contemporary artist Elsa James joins EMPIRE LINES live, navigating how the slave ship marks and haunts Black lives in Britain today, in their interdisciplinary exhibition, It Should Not Be Forgotten (2025). *Content Warning* This episode discusses rape and other forms of...
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Love (Warbler Remix), Hanna Tuulikki (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Folkestone Triennial 2025)
Artist Hanna Tuulikki traces the migration route of the Marsh Warbler, a bird that mimics and remixes the songs of European and Afrotropical species it meets, across the English Channel to Kent. Through vocal mimesis, or mimicry, Hanna Tuulikki offers alternative approaches to making kin with...
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The Dhaba, Alia Syed (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at CCA Glasgow)
In this special episode, filmmaker and contemporary artist Alia Syed joins EMPIRE LINES live, to weave together their works in moving image, photography, and oral history, and reflect on personal experiences of migration in South Asian diasporic communities in 1960s–1970s Glasgow, through their...
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A Cutting: Stone Portals, Leo Robinson (Ongoing) (EMPIRE LINES Live at The Hunterian, SEEDLINGS)
Find out more about Leo Robinson’s relations to African and Caribbean cosmologies, and worldbuilding through play, with Stone Portals (Ongoing), now part of SEEDLINGS: Diasporic Imaginaries, curated by Jelena Sofronijevic with Travelling Gallery in Scotland. The group exhibition, featuring…
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A Cutting: Kinnomic Botany: Freeing the Potato from its Scientific and Colonial Ties, Iman Datoo (2022) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Invasion Ecology, SEEDLINGS)
Find out more about Iman Datoo’s installation, Kinnomic Botany (2022), now part of SEEDLINGS: Diasporic Imaginaries, curated by Jelena Sofronijevic with Travelling Gallery in Scotland. The group exhibition, featuring Emii Alrai, Iman Datoo, Radovan Kraguly, Zeljko Kujundzic, Remi Jabłecki, Leo...
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Kern, Amba Sayal-Bennett (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Somerset House Studios, SEEDLINGS)
In this special episode, contemporary artist Amba Sayal-Bennett joins EMPIRE LINES live, to trace the migrations of rubber seeds between South America, London, and British colonies in South Asia in the 19th century, plus the role of soil in anticolonial resistance, through their digital drawing…
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Sweet & Sour, Hrair Sarkissian (2021-2022) (EMPIRE LINES x Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Lisson Gallery)
Conceptual photographer Hrair Sarkissian moves between Syria, Armenia, and Turkey, capturing present absences in personal and political histories in the 20th and 21st centuries. Hrair Sarkissian uses photography, installation, moving image, and sound to reflect on social issues, often silenced or...
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Palimpsest: Tales Spun From Sea And Memories, Billy Gerard Frank (2019) (EMPIRE LINES Live at PEACE FREQUENCIES)
Contemporary artist Billy Gerard Frank explores the deep connections between Grenada, Scotland, and England, following the life and legacies of Ottobah Cugoano in their film, Palimpsest: Tales Spun From Sea And Memories (2019). This episode was recorded live as part of PEACE FREQUENCIES, a 24…
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Hero’s Head, Richard Hunt (1956) (EMPIRE LINES x White Cube, Centre Pompidou)
Curator Sukanya Rajaratnam and biographer Jon Ott weld together African American culture and 20th century Western/European modernism, through Richard Hunt’s 1956 sculpture, Hero’s Head. Born on the South Side of Chicago, sculptor Richard Hunt (1935-2023) was immersed in the city’s culture,...
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Our Island Stories: Ten Walks Through Rural Britain and Its Hidden History of Empire, Corinne Fowler (2024), with Ingrid Pollard (EMPIRE LINES Live at Invasion Ecology)
In this special episode, historian Corinne Fowler joins EMPIRE LINES live with visual artist and researcher Ingrid Pollard, linking rural British landscapes, buildings, and houses, to global histories of transatlantic slavery, through their book, Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial...
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Furnace Fruit, Karanjit Panesar (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x Leeds Art Gallery, British Library)
Contemporary artist Karanjit Panesar recasts stories of migrant labourers from Punjab working in British industrial foundries, exploring constructs of memory, and national myths in metal, through his film installation, Furnace Fruit (2024). Karanjit Panesar’s practice considers the entanglements…
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Terratypes, Tanoa Sasraku (2022-Now) (EMPIRE LINES x RAMM, ICA)
Contemporary artist Tanoa Sasraku unearths complex relations with British landscapes and natural resources, connecting environments from the north coast of Scotland to South West England, and flagging colonial extractivism in Ghana, through their series of Terratypes (2022-Now). Tanoa Sasraku’s...
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The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998, with Shanay Jhaveri, Anita Dube, and Nalini Malani (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x Barbican)
Contemporary artists Nalini Malani and Anita Dube, and curator Shanay Jhaveri, journey through two decades of cultural and political change in South Asia, from Indira Gandhi’s declaration of the State of Emergency in 1975, to the Pokhran Nuclear Tests in 1998, in the 2024 exhibition, The…
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World Civil War Portraits, Sara Shamma (2015) (EMPIRE LINES Live at PEACE FREQUENCIES)
In this special episode, contemporary artist Sara Shamma paints experiences of conflict, modern slavery, and hopes for postwar reconstruction, travelling between Syria, Lebanon, and London, in their series, World Civil War Portraits (2015). *Content Warning* This episode discusses rape and other...
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Ancestral Future, Ailton Krenak (2022) (EMPIRE LINES x Tramway, Arika)
Artist and curator Amilcar Packer unpacks ideas of decolonisation and anti-colonialism in education, thinking through the works of Ailton Krenak, a leading activist in the Brazilian indigenous movement. Born in Santiago de Chile, and based in São Paulo, Brazil since the 1980s, artist and curator...
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I Am in a Pretty Pickle, Steph Huang (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x esea contemporary, Tate Britain)
Curator Jo-Lene Ong walks through historic marketplaces across Taiwan, Paris, Devon, London, and Manchester, exchanging island mentality for more archipelagic thinking, via Steph Huang’s sculptural installation, I Am in a Pretty Pickle (2024). Through works combining sculpture, sound, and film,...
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It Will End in Tears, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x Barbican)
Contemporary artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, and curator Diego Chocano, slip between places and times, reconstructing the landscape of Botswana in the centre of the city of London, through their filmic installation, It Will End in Tears (2024). Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum’s practice spans…
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M Street, Sylvia Snowden (1978-1997) (EMPIRE LINES x White Cube Paris)
Contemporary artist Sylvia Snowden figures different approaches to expressionism, layering Western European and African American art histories, through their paintings of M Street, in Washington DC (1978-1997). In 1962, the young artist Sylvia Snowden spent a summer in France on a student tour…
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Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging, Jessica J. Lee (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Invasion Ecology)
In this special episode, writer Jessica J. Lee joins EMPIRE LINES live with visual artist and researcher Iman Datoo, to explore the languages of ‘natural’ history and invasive species through their book, Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging (2024). Bringing together memoir, history, and...
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A Right of an Exile, Kedisha Coakley (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Hepworth Wakefield)
In this special episode, artist Kedisha Coakley joins EMPIRE LINES live at the Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire, connecting their work from Jamaican and Black diasporic communities across the UK, with their research into sculptor Ronald Moody, uncovering shared interests in Ancient Egypt,...
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House of Weaving Songs, Dhaqan Collective (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at the Eden Project, Cornwall x Counterpoints Arts, Art Reach)
In this special episode, Fozia Ismail and Ayan Cilmi from the feminist art collective Dhaqan Collective join EMPIRE LINES live at the Eden Project in Cornwall, alongside artists Kaajal Modi and Sovay Berriman, and environmental humanities lecturer Jim Scown, to discuss Somali cultural heritage in...
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Innocence, Permindar Kaur (1993) (EMPIRE LINES x John Hansard Gallery, Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2024)
Artist and sculptor Permindar Kaur moves between the Black British Arts Movement, the Young British Artists (YBAs), and Barcelona in the 1990s, exploring the ambiguities of Indian and South Asian cultural identities, Nothing is Fixed is an idea that has grown from Permindar Kaur’s 2022…
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Scottish Mission Book Depot Keta, El Anatsui (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh Art Festival 2024)
Curator Tessa Giblin deconstructs El Anatsui’s monumental, sculptural textiles, unravelling the ties that still bind post-colonial Ghana, Nigeria, and Scotland in the 21st century. Born in 1944, between the German and British colonial periods of the Gold Coast (1821-1957), El Anatsui has engaged...
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Sekondi Locomotive Workshop, Ibrahim Mahama (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x Fruitmarket, White Cube)
Artist Ibrahim Mahama ‘time travels’ between British colonial and independent Ghana, tracing railway lines across African and European countries in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in the 20th century. Ibrahim Mahama is well-known for his large-scale, site-specific installations that speak to the...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
EMPIRE LINES uncovers the unexpected, often two-way, flows of empires through art.Interdisciplinary thinkers use individual artworks as artefacts of imperial exchange, revealing the how and why of the monolith ‘empire’.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelinesTRANSCRIPTS: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-pwfn4U_P1o2oT2Zfb7CoCWadZ3-pO4C?usp=sharingMUSIC: Combinación // The DubbstylePRODUCER: Jelena SofronijevicEMPIRE LINES is a project within the ecosystem of Radical Ecology (2026-2027).
HOSTED BY
EMPIRE LINES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does EMPIRE LINES have?
EMPIRE LINES currently has 176 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is EMPIRE LINES about?
EMPIRE LINES uncovers the unexpected, often two-way, flows of empires through art.Interdisciplinary thinkers use individual artworks as artefacts of imperial exchange, revealing the how and why of the monolith ‘empire’.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast Support...
How often does EMPIRE LINES release new episodes?
EMPIRE LINES publishes regularly with 176 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to EMPIRE LINES?
You can listen to EMPIRE LINES on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts EMPIRE LINES?
EMPIRE LINES is created and hosted by EMPIRE LINES.
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