Welcome to our brand new podcast!

We’ll be exploring arts, heritage and creativity of all kinds from a barriers-facing perspective, hearing from leading makers, activists and cultural workers about the things that matter to them.

We will also be introducing new or upcoming projects, and discovering new ideas about what disability is - and what contemporary culture might be as a result.

For the debut episode, and to mark the end of the first year of Emergent - our residency programme designed to support early-career artists delivered with BALTIC - we'll be hearing from Kaiya Waerea. Kaiya was shortlisted for the 2022 Emergent residency and is a chronically ill writer, designer, and publisher from Aotearoa, living in London.

We asked Kaiya how she believes socially-engaged artists can meaningfully intervene amongst the multiple crises facing disabled people today. In this generous response, Kaiya shares a reading from Innovative Healthcare, or Chocolate with Nuts (2022) which brought together medical encounters from childhood cartoons, such as Spongebob Squarepants, and Kaiya's own experiences with DWP and Access to Work assessments. 

We would like to thank Ian Rattray, Sound Editor and Grace Fairley, Illustrator for their contributions to the podcast.

Download the transcript Find out more about our podcast

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Listen on Soundcloud

We'd love your feedback on this episode!

The visual design for our new podcast was designed by Grace Fairley, who - alongisde Kaiya - was in our cohort of shortlisted artists in the Emergent programme. Interested in Emergent? We will be opening the programme up for applications in the near future, for its second year. Make sure you are signed up to our newsletter to get the latest updates straight to your inbox!

Our Emergent programme is supported by the Foyle Foundation.

Check out Kaiya's artist profile Find out more about Emergent