- Miaaw Monthly
- Posts
- Issue 31 | April 2025
Issue 31 | April 2025
Owen Kelly
April 01, 2025
Here we are again with the April 2025 edition of Miaaw Monthly, courtesy of our shiny newsletter provider Beehiiv.com.
We continue to hope that you will send us something that you want to include in Miaaw Monthly, or something that you want to suggest for the podcasts, by emailing us at monthly@miaaw.net. We will be happy to include your news and suggestions here and hunt down the topics you want to hear in the podcasts.
PODCASTS FOR APRIL 2025
Friday April 4
YLC Special Edition | EPISODE 3
In the final episode of this series of Special Editions, Sophie Hope interviews Youth Landscapers’ Producer Rebecca Lee along with members Alfie Ropson and Georgia Harris-Marsh, and board member Jo Wheeler.
They reflect on their experiences of last year’s song-making project, get into the nitty gritty around the youth-led structure of the organisation and discuss future plans.
Friday April 11
Ways of Listening | Episode 17
Hannah Kemp-Welch talks to somebody so secret that their name is not yet publicly available. All we know is that history suggests that the result of this conversation, once revealed, will be of great interest to some and some interest to all.
Friday April 18
A Culture of Possibility | Episode 51
Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with David Cutler, Director of The Baring Foundation, based in London.
One of Baring’s strategic grant areas is Arts & Mental Health, granting about £1 million per year over at least five years to organizations specializing in arts and creativity with people with mental health problems. Do they discuss this? Yes they do!
Friday April 25
Common Practice | Episode 40
Owen Kelly talks to Sovay Berriman about the possibility of rewilding cultural practice, and arts administration; and her experiences of being Cornish in a world that seems intent on ignoring Cornishness.
A THOUSAND WORDS
Oona Foster campaign sticker: Green Party, Helsinki local elections, April 2025
THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD
Plexus Institute
You may or may not know about The Plexus Institute. However they have this to say:
For more than two decades, Plexus Institute has been a leading advocate for the application of complexity science to organizational and social challenges. Our archives contain a wealth of materials—including research, case studies, recorded dialogues, and thought leadership—that have played a pivotal role in shaping the field of applied complexity.
However, as a completely volunteer-led organization, Plexus Institute is no longer in a position to sustain ongoing operations or effectively maintain and share this important body of work. As a result, Plexus Institute will discontinue all direct communications, programs, and organizational activities as of April 1, 2025.
They are now “are seeking a partner to help preserve and manage the Plexus archives, ensuring their continued accessibility and impact. These materials represent decades of applied complexity research and practice, and we believe their value can extend far beyond Plexus Institute.”
A single, rather sad event, or a sign of the times? Discuss. (Or don’t.)
The Guardian hollows itself out
If you read the Guardian or The Observer you may have noticed in recent weeks that a number of columnists have written their final columns, from political journalists like Carole Cadwallr to food journalists and restaurant reviewers like Jay Rayner.
As Carole Cadwallr has written:
it’s one thing to write about information collapse, and another to live it.
The Observer, or the hollowed-out shell of it, transfers to Tortoise on April 23rd and 100+ journalists have been terminated from the Guardian in various different guises. I’ve said before that in some ways, it doesn’t feel like a particularly surprising coincidence that this happened at the same moment that the tech bros merge with the US presidency. But on the other hand, it has been a lot to deal with.
This month we look at just a few of the newsletters that people have started producing as a way of communicating directly with some of the people they want to communicate with. None of them are directly “arts-based”, but all of them relate to the changing circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Carole Cadwallr (see above) has left The Guardian to start life as an independent newsletter writer on Substack. You can subscribe to How to Survive the Broligarchy if you click here.
Dan Gillmor, an American journalist and commentator, has started a newsletter called The Cornerstone of Democracy. The title derives from the fact that Thomas Jefferson said that “The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate.”
He describes it as his attempt “to bring you news and commentary that will help you fully grasp the vastly worse conditions we are likely to face in the Trump presidency – and help you respond to them. Trump's regime will become a dictatorship unless a genuine and effective resistance coalesces.
But resisting isn't enough. Liberal democracy and progressive policies need champions, workers, and funders: a cadre of people who want to turn resistance into rebuilding. I'll do what I can to help.”
You can subscribe if you click here.
Meanwhile back at Substack, Tommi Laitio, a former cultural head at Helsinki City, has a newsletter called Policies for Convivencia which he describes as “featuring clever policies for co-existence and the people behind them. The Latin American notion of convivencia, understood as a capability to co-exist across differences, encapsulates the ideal state for public life where the parties do not strive to resolve differences but have the ability and willingness for pragmatic solutions.”
You can subscribe to that by clicking here.
Finally, for this month, Adam Tooze has a newsletter called Chartbook, which does what it says. It takes very forms of information and converts them into charts. If this sounds dry or dull then I suggest you check it out because it really isn’t.
You can subscribe to Chartbook by clicking here.
In coming months we will look at more newsletters, including some dealing directly with “the arts” and culture, as we look at ways to reclaim our communication systems.
THE MIAAW REVIEW
The second issue of The Miaaw Review will appear on Wednesday April 16. The only way to get it is by subscribing to it. If you would like to receive a copy of this issue of The Miaaw Review then please subscribe by clicking this link.
This will take you to a web page where you can enter your email address. At the cost of having to enter it manually you will receive our guarantee that we will never spam you, sell your address, give it away, or even admit to having it.
What does this issue contain, you ask. Owen Kelly has written the first part of an exploration into reclaiming the web, and our communications systems from the new monopolists, asks what it will take to get people to actually leave Facebook, and suggests some answers, as well as some alternative approaches to the question. We also have some short guest pieces, and possibly another essay from François Matarasso.
It would be a shame for you to miss it!