140 Ideas

Back to Earth presents a new mini-podcast series inspired by the publication of 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth, a collaboration between Serpentine and Penguin. Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist & Kostas Stasinopoulos, this book is part of Back to Earth, Serpentine’s long-term project dedicated to the environment and the climate emergency.

For this podcast series we’ve invited five artists from the book to share their contributions and take us on a journey through actions and thoughts their instructions might inspire.

Episode One: Tomás Saraceno

In the first episode of 140 Ideas, Tomás Saraceno invites us to listen to the spider playing its web at night inside our homes. We are encouraged to move away from a fear of spiders (arachnophobia) and towards a love of spiders (arachnophilia), both here and in Webs of Life, presented by Serpentine and AcuteArt. With vibrations from the Arachnophilia community: Nephila senegalensis, Pardosa lugubris, Cyrtophora citricola, Habronattus dossenus from the Arachnophilia Archives recorded at Studio Tomás Saraceno.

Episode Two: Nahum

In this episode of 140 Ideas, artist and musician Nahum invites us to experience intimacy with our planet and our galaxy. Exploring earthbound existence, through visible and invisible connections, Nahum encourages listeners to open their mouths when it’s raining, swallow a piece of cloud and travel to outer space.

Episode Three: Cauleen Smith

In this episode of 140 Ideas, filmmaker Cauleen Smith talks us through a summer cocktail recipe for colonizers, asks us to consider our direct relationship with our surroundings and encourages us to think about our own culpability, violence and extraction.

Episode Four: Bhanu Kapil

In this episode of 140 Ideas, poet Bhanu Kapil shares a creative gesture to link cosmic energy to the earthly domain and an instruction for all those fighting for climate justice focusing on the question: What do you never want to experience in this space?

Episode Five: Maya Lin

In this episode of 140 Ideas, artist and environmentalist Maya Lin invites us to give half our yard back to nature and explores how implementing nature-based solutions in agriculture and forestry has a substantial effect in the climate emergency.

Back to Earth is curated and produced by Rebecca Lewin, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Lucia Pietroiusti, Jo Paton, Holly Shuttleworth and Kostas Stasinopoulos.

Special thanks to Bettina Korek, CEO of Serpentine, Bloomberg Philanthropies and all the advisors Claude Adjil, Brian Eno, Alice Rawsthorn, Kevin Conroy Scott and Yesomi Umolu for their insightful advice on this book.

This series of five artist episodes is produced by Deborah Shorinde for Reduced Listening, with music from Femi Oriogun-Williams.